©10  llClorlD  Series 


THE 
CITY  OF  DREADFUL  NIGHT 

AND  OTHER    POEMS 


i  i  Njo  t^^f'^  of  mine  shall  fall  upon  thy  face ; 
1  N      IVhatever  City  thou  hast  gained,  at  last, 
'Better  it  is  than  that  where  thy  feet  passed 

So  many  times,  such  weary  nights  and  days. 

Those  journeying  feet  knew  all  its  inmost  ways  ; 
Where  shapes  and  shadows  of  dread  things  were  cast, 
There  moved  thy  soul,  profoundly  dark  and  vast, 

There  did  thy  voice  its  hymn  of  anguish  raise. 

Thou  wouldst  have  left  that  City  of  great  CP(ight, 
Yet  travelled  its  dark  ma^es,  all  in  vain ; 

But  one  way  leads  from  it,  which  found  aright, 
JVho  goes  by  it  may  not  return  again. 
There  didst  thou  grope  thy  way,  through  thy  long  pain  ; 

Hast  thou,  outside,  found  any  world  of  light  ?  " 

PHILIP    BOURKE    MARSTON. 


THE  Cmr  OF  DREADFUL  NIGHT 

AND  OTHER  POEMS  BY 

JAMES  THOMSON 


Portland,  Maine 

^dccccnj 


This  First  Edition  on 
Van  Gtlder  paper  con- 
sists  of  92  s  copies. 


CONTENTS 


PAGB 

Proem      

vii 

The  City  of  Dreadful  Night 

I 

To  Our  Ladies  of  Death 

59 

Insomnia          .... 

68 

He  Heard  Her  Sing    . 

80 

In  the  Room 

93 

A  Voice  from  the  Nile 

102 

The  Poet  and  His  Muse     . 

no 

Mater  Tenebrarum      . 

116 

L'Ancien  R]£gime  . 

119 

The  Sleeper 

123 

On  a  Broken  Pipe 

127 

Day 

128 

Night      

129 

Willla-m  Blake     . 

130 

<  >  /"^  /*  o  cr  :". 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


E.  B.  B 

The  Fire  That  Filled  My  Heart  132 

Song 133 

A  Requiem      .        .        .        -        .  134 


PROEM 


PROEM 

O  ANTIQUE  fables  !  beautiful  and  bright 
And  joyous  with  the  joyous  youth  of  yore  ; 
O  antique  fables !  for  a  little  light 
Of  that  which  shineth  in  you  evermore, 
To  cleanse  the  dimness  from  our  weary  eyes, 
And  bathe  our  old  world  with  a  new  surprise 
Of  golden  dawn  entrancing  sea  and  shore. 

We  stagger  under  the  enormous  weight 

Of  all  the  heavy  ages  piled  on  us, 

With  all  their  grievous  wrongs  inveterate, 

And  all  their  disenchantments  dolorous. 

And  all  the  monstrous  tasks  they  have  bequeathed ; 

And  we  are  stifled  with  the  airs  they  breathed  ; 

And  read  in  theirs  our  dooms  calamitous. 

Our  world  is  all  stript  naked  of  their  dreams  ; 

No  deities  in  sky  or  sun  or  moon. 

No  nymphs  in  woods  and  hills  and  seas  and  streams 

Mere  earth  and  water,  air  and  fire,  their  boon  ; 

No  God  in  all  our  universe  we  trace. 

No  heaven  in  the  infinitude  of  space, 

No  life  beyond  death  —  coming  not  too  soon. 

Our  souls  are  stript  of  their  illusions  sweet, 
Our  hopes  at  best  in  some  far  future  years 


For  others,  not  ourselves ;  whose  bleeding  feet 
Wander  this  rocky  waste  where  broken  spears 
And  bleaching  bones  lie  scattered  on  the  sand ; 
Who  know  we  shall  not  reach  the  Promised  Land; 
Perhaps  a  mirage  glistening  through  our  tears. 

And  if  there  be  this  Promised  Land  indeed, 

Our  children's  children's  children's  heritage, 

Oh,  what  a  prodigal  waste  of  precious  seed, 

Of  myriad  myriad  lives  from  age  to  age. 

Of  woes  and  agonies  and  blank  despairs. 

Through  countless  cycles,  that  some  fortunate  heirs 

May  enter,  and  conclude  the  pilgrimage  1 

But  if  it  prove  a  mirage  after  all  ! 
Our  last  illusion  leaves  us  wholly  bare, 
To  bruise  against  Fate's  adamantine  wall, 
Consumed  or  frozen  in  the  pitiless  air; 
In  all  our  world,  beneath,  around,  above. 
One  only  refuge,  solace,  triumph,  —  Love, 
Sole  star  of  light  in  infinite  black  despair. 

O  antique  fables  !  beautiful  and  bright. 

And  joyous  with  the  joyous  youth  of  yore  ; 

O  antique  fables !  for  a  little  light 

Of  that  which  shineth  in  you  evermore, 

To  cleanse  the  dimness  from  our  weary  eyes, 

And  bathe  our  old  world  with  a  new  surprise 

Of  golden  dawn  entrancing  sea  and  shore. 

January  1882. 


THE 
CITY  OF  DREADFUL  NIGHT 

AND  OTHER   POEMS 


Per  me  si  va  nella  citt^  dolente." 

—  Dante. 

Poi  di  tanto  adoprar,  di  tanti  moti 

D'ogni  celeste,  ogni  terrena  cosa, 

Girando  senza  posa, 

Per  tomar  sempre  \k  donde  son  mosse  ; 

Uso  alcuno,  alcun  frutto 

Indovinar  non  so." 

Sola  nel  mondo  etema,  a  cui  si  volve 

Ogni  creata  cosa, 

In  te,  morte,  si  posa 

Nostra  ignuda  natura  ; 

Lieta  no,  ma  sicura 

Deir  antico  dolor.     .     .     . 

Per6  ch'  esser  beato 

Nega  ai  mortali  e  nega  a'  morti  il  fa  to." 

—  Leopardi. 


THE 
CITY  OF  DREADFUL  NIGHT 

1870:1874 

PROEM 

Lo,  thus,  as  prostrate,  "  In  the  dust  I  write 
My  heart's  deep  languor  and  my  soul's  sad  tears." 
Yet  why  evoke  the  spectres  of  black  night 
To  blot  the  sunshine  of  exultant  years  ? 
Why  disinter  dead  faith  from  mouldering  hidden? 
Why  break  the  seals  of  mute  despair  unbidden, 
And  wail  life's  discords  into  careless  ears  ? 

Because  a  cold  rage  seizes  one  at  whiles 
To  show  the  bitter  old  and  wrinkled  truth 

Stripped  naked  of  all  vesture  that  beguiles. 

False  dreams,  false  hopes,  false  masks  and  modes 
of  youth  ; 

Because  it  gives  some  sense  of  power  and  passion 

In  helpless  impotence  to  try  to  fashion 
Our  woe  in  living  words  howe'er  uncouth. 

Surely  I  write  not  for  the  hopeful  young,  l^ 

Or  those  who  deem  their  happiness  of  worth,  / 


THE  CITY  OF  DREADFUL  NIGHT 

Or  such  as  pasture  and  grow  fat  among 
The  shows  of  life  and  feel  nor  doubt  nor  dearth, 

Or  pious  spirits  with  a  God  above  them 

To  sanctify  and  glorify  and  love  them, 
Or  sages  who  foresee  a  heaven  on  earth. 

For  none  of  these  I  write,  and  none  of  these 
Could  read  the  writing  if  they  deigned  to  try  : 

So  may  they  flourish,  in  their  due  degrees. 

On  our  sweet  earth  and  in  their  unplaced  sky. 

If  any  cares  for  the  weak  words  here  written, 

It  must  be  some  one  desolate.  Fate-smitten, 

Whose  faith  and  hope  are  dead,  and  who  would  die. 

Yes,  here  and  there  some  weary  wanderer 
In  that  same  city  of  tremendous  night, 

Will  understand  the  speech,  and  feel  a  stir 
Of  fellowship  in  all-disastrous  fight ; 

"  I  suffer  mute  and  lonely,  yet  another 

Uplifts  his  voice  to  let  me  know  a  brother 

Travels  the  same  wild  paths  though  out  of  sight." 

O  sad  Fraternity,  do  I  unfold 

Your  dolorous  mysteries  shrouded  from  of  yore  ? 
Nay,  be  assured ;  no  secret  can  be  told 

To  any  who  divined  it  not  before : 
None  uninitiate  by  many  a  presage 
Will  comprehend  the  language  of  the  message. 

Although  proclaimed  aloud  for  evermore. 


THE  City  is  of  Night;  perchance  of  Death,     / 
But  certainly  of  Night ;  for  never  there 
Can  come  the  lucid  morning's  fragrant  breath 

After  the  dewy  dawning's  cold  grey  air; 
The  moon  and  stars  may  shine  with  scorn  or  pity ; 
The  sun  has  never  visited  that  city, 
For  it  dissolveth  in  the  daylight  fair. 

Dissolveth  like  a  dream  of  night  away ; 

Though  present  in  distempered  gloom  of  thought 
And  deadly  weariness  of  heart  all  day. 

But  when  a  dream  night  after  night  is  brought 
Throughout  a  week,  and  such  weeks  few  or  many 
Recur  each  year  for  several  years,  can  any 

Discern  that  dream  from  real  life  in  aught  ? 

P'or  life  is  but  a  dream  whose  shapes  return. 
Some  frequently,  some  seldom,  some  by  night 

And  some  by  day,  some  night  and  day  :  we  learn, 
The  while  all  change  and  many  vanish  quite. 

In  their  recurrence  with  recurrent  changes 

A  certain  seeming  order ;  where  this  ranges 

We  count  things  real ;  such  is  memory's  might. 

A  river  girds  the  city  west  and  south, 

The  main  north  channel  of  a  broad  lagoon, 

Regurging  with  the  salt  tides  from  the  mouth  ; 
Waste  marshes  shine  and  glister  to  the  moon 


THE    CITY   OF   DREADFUL    NIGHT 

For  leagues,  then  moorland  black,  then  stony  ridges; 
Great  piers  and  causeways,  many  noble  bridges, 
Connect  the  town  and  islet  suburbs  strewn. 

Upon  an  easy  slope  it  lies  at  large, 

And  scarcely  overlaps  the  long  curved  crest 

Which  swells  out  two  leagues  from  the  river  marge. 
A  trackless  wilderness  rolls  north  and  west, 

Savannahs,  savage  woods,  enormous  mountains. 

Bleak  uplands,  black  ravines  with  torrent  fountains ; 
And  eastward  rolls  the  shipless  sea's  unrest. 

The  city  is  not  ruinous,  although 

Great  ruins  of  an  unremembered  past. 
With  others  of  a  few  short  years  ago 

More  sad,  are  found  within  its  precincts  vast. 
The  street-lamps  always  burn;  but  scarce  a  casement 
In  house  or  palace  front  from  roof  to  basement 

Doth  glow  or  gleam  athwart  the  mirk  air  cast. 

The  street-lamps  burn  amidst  the  baleful  glooms. 
Amidst  the  soundless  solitudes  immense 

Of  ranged  mansions  dark  and  still  as  tombs. 
The  silence  which  benumbs  or  strains  the  sensq 

Fulfils  with  awe  the  soul's  despair  unweeping : 

Myriads  of  habitants  are  ever  sleeping, 
Or  dead,  or  fled  from  nameless  pestilence ! 

Yet  as  in  some  necropolis  you  find 

Perchance  one  mourner  to  a  thousand  dead. 


THE  CITY  OF  DREADFUL  NIGHT 

So  there ;  worn  faces  that  look  deaf  and  blind 

Like  tragic  masks  of  stone.     With  weary  tread,     ' 

Each  wrapt  in  his  own  doom,  they  wander,  wander, 

Or  sit  foredone  and  desolately  ponder 

Through  sleepless  hours  with  heavy  drooping  head. 

Mature  men  chiefly,  few  in  age  or  youth, 
A  woman  rarely,  now  and  then  a  child : 

A  child !     If  here  the  heart  turns  sick  with  ruth 
To  see  a  little  one  from  birth  defiled, 

Or  lame  or  blind,  as  preordained  to  languish 

Through  youthless  life,  think  how  it  bleeds  with  anguish 
To  meet  one  erring  in  that  homeless  wild. 

They  often  murmur  to  themselves,  they  speak 

To  one  another  seldom,  for  their  woe 
Broods  maddening  inwardly  and  scorns  to  wreak 

Itself  abroad;  and  if  at  whiles  it  grow 
To  frenzy  which  must  rave,  none  heeds  the  clamour, 
Unless  there  waits  some  victim  of  like  glamour. 

To  rave  in  turn,  who  lends  attentive  show. 

The  City  is  of  Night,  but  not  of  Sleep;  | 

There  sweet  sleep  is  not  for  the  weary  brain ; 

The  pitiless  hours  like  years  and  ages  creep, 

A  night  seems  termless  hell.     This  dreadful  strain 

Of  thought  and  consciousness  which  never  ceases, 

Or  which  some  moments'  stupor  but  increases. 

This,  worse  than  woe,  makes  wretches  there  insane. 


THE  CITY  OF  DREADFUL  NIGHT 

They  leave  all  hope  behind  who  enter  there : 
One  certitude  while  sane  they  cannot  leave, 

One  anodyne  for  tortue  and  despair; 

The  certitude  of  Death,  which  no  reprieve 

Can  put  off  long ;  and  which,  divinely  tender. 

But  waits  the  outstretched  hand  to  promptly  render 
That  draught  whose  slumber  nothing  can  bereave. » 


I  Though  the  Garden  of  thy  Life  be  wholly  waste,  the 
sweet  flowers  withered,  the  fruit-trees  barren,  over  its  wall 
hang  ever  the  rich  dark  clusters  of  the  Vine  of  Death,  within 
easy  reach  of  thy  hand,  which  may  pluck  of  them  when  it 
wUl. 


II 


BECAUSE  he  seemed  to  walk  with  an  intent 
I  followed  him;  who,  shadowlike  and  frail, 
Unswervingly  though  slowly  onward  went, 

Regardless,  wrapt  in  thought  as  in  a  veil : 
Thus  step  for  step  with  lonely  sounding  feet 
We  travelled  many  a  long  dim  silent  street. 

At  length  he  paused :  a  black  mass  in  the  gloom, 
A  tower  that  merged  into  the  heavy  sky ; 

Around,  the  huddled  stones  of  grave  and  tomb : 
Some  old  God's-acre  now  corruption's  sty: 

He  murmured  to  himself  with  dull  despair, 

Here  Faith  died,  poisoned  by  this  charnel  air. 

Then  turning  to  the  right  went  on  once  more, 

And  travelled  weary  roads  without  suspense  ;        ^ 

And  reached  at  last  a  low  wall's  open  door,  ' 

Whose  villa  gleamed  beyond  the  foliage  dense : 

He  gazed,  and  muttered  with  a  hard  despair, 

Here  Love  died,  stabbed  by  its  own  worshipped  pair. 


Then  turning  to  the  right  resumed  his  march, 

And   travelled   streets    and   lanes    with    wondrous 
strength, 

Until  on  stooping  through  a  narrow  arch 
We  stood  before  a  squalid  house  at  length  : 

He  gazed,  and  whispered  with  a  cold  despair, 

Here  Hope  died,  starved  out  in  its  utmost  lair. 


THE  CITY  OF  DREADFUL  NIGHT 

When  he  had  spoken  thus,  before  he  stirred, 
I  spoke,  perplexed  by  something  in  the  signs 

Of  desolation  I  had  seen  and  heard 

In  this  drear  pilgrimage  to  ruined  shrines : 

When  P'aith  and  Love  and  Hope  are  dead  indeed, 

Can  Life  still  live  ?     By  what  doth  it  proceed  ? 

As  whom  his  one  intense  thought  overpowers, 
He  answered  coldly,  Take  a  watch,  erase 

The  signs  and  figures  of  the  circling  hours, 
Detach  the  hands,  remove  the  dial-face  ; 

The  works  proceed  until  run  down ;  although 

Bereft  of  purpose,  void  of  use,  still  go.  ] 

Then  turning  to  the  right  paced  on  again, 

And  traversed  squares  and  travelled  streets  whose 
glooms 

Seemed  more  and  more  familiar  to  my  ken ; 
And  reached  that  sullen  temple  of  the  tombs ; 

And  paused  to  murmur  wuth  the  old  despair, 

Here  Faith  died,  poisoned  by  this  charnel  air. 

I  ceased  to  follow,  for  the  knot  of  doubt 
Was  severed  sharply  with  a  cruel  knife  : 

He  circled  thus  for  ever  tracing  out 
The  series  of  the  fraction  left  of  Life  ; 

Perpetual  recurrence  in  the  scope 

Of  but  three  terms,  dead  Faith,  dead  Love,  dead  Hope.' 

LXX     .   . 

I  Life  divided  by  that  persistent  three= =*210. 

333 


Ill 


ALTHOUGH  lamps  burn  along  the  silent  streets  ; 
Even  when  moonlight  silvers  empty  squares 
The  dark  holds  countless  lanes  and  close  retreats  ; 

But  when  the  night  its  sphereless  mantle  wears 
The  open  spaces  yawn  with  gloom  abysmal, 
The  sombre  mansions  loom  immense  and  dismal, 
The  lanes  are  black  as  subterranean  lairs. 

And  soon  the  eye  a  strange  new  vision  learns  : 
The  night  remains  for  it  as  dark  and  dense, 

Yet  clearly  in  this  darkness  it  discerns 
As  in  the  daylight  with  its  natural  sense ; 

Perceives  a  shade  in  shadow  not  obscurely, 

Pursues  astir  of  black  in  blackness  surely, 
Sees  spectres  also  in  the  gloom  intense. 

The  ear,  too,  with  the  silence  vast  and  deep 
Becomes  familiar  though  unreconciled ; 

Hears  breathings  as  of  hidden  life  asleep, 
And  muffled  throbs  as  of  pent  passions  wuld. 

Far  murmurs,  speech  of  pity  or  derision  ; 

But  all  more  dubious  than  the  things  of  vision, 
So  that  it  knows  not  when  it  is  beguiled. 

No  time  abates  the  first  despair  and  awe, 
But  wonder  ceases  soon  ;  the  weirdest  thing 

Is  felt  least  strange  beneath  the  lawless  law 
Where  Death-in-Life  is  the  eternal  king; 


THE  CITY  OF  DREADFUL  NIGHT 


Crushed  impotent  beneath  this  reign  of  terror, 
Dazed  with  such  mysteries  of  woe  and  error, 
The  soul  is  too  outworn  for  wondering. 


12 


IV 


HE  Stood  alone  within  the  spacious  square 
Declaiming  from  the  central  grassy  mound, 
With  head  uncovered  and  with  streaming  hair, 
As  if  large  multitudes  were  gathered  round : 
A  stalwart  shape,  the  gestures  full  of  might, 
The  glances  burning  with  unnatural  light :  — 

As  I  came  through  the  desert  thus  it  was. 

As  I  came  through  the  desert:  All  was  black. 

In  heaven  no  single  star,  on  earth  no  track  ; 

A  brooding  hush  without  a  stir  or  note. 

The  air  so  thick  it  clotted  in  my  throat ; 

And  thus  for  hours  ;  then  some  enormous  things 

Swooped  past  with  savage  cries  and  clanking  wings 

But  I  strode  on  austere  ; 

No  hope  could  have  no  fear. 

As  I  came  through  the  desert  thus  it  was, 
As  I  came  through  the  desert :  Eyes  of  fire 
Glared  at  me  throbbing  wi^  a  starved  desire ; 
The  hoarse  and  heavy  and  carnivorous  breath 
Was  hot  upon  me  from  deep  jaws  of  death ; 
Sharp  claws,  swift  talons,  fleshless  fingers  cold 
Plucked  at  me  from  the  bushes,  tried  to  hold  : 

But  I  strode  on  austere  ; 

No  hope  could  have  no  fear.  /-'^ 

As  I  came  through  the  desert  thus  it  was, 
As  I  came  through  the  desert :  Lo  you,  there, 


THE  CITY  OF  DREADFUL  NIGHT 

That  hillock  burning  with  a  brazen  glare ; 
Those  myriad  dusky  flames  with  points  a-glow 
Which  writhed  and  hissed  and  darted  to  and  fro  ; 
A  Sabbath  of  the  Serpents,  heaped  pell-mell 
For  Devil's  roll-call  and  some/?/^  of  Hell : 

Yet  I  strode  on  austere  ; 

No  hope  could  have  no  fear. 

As  I  came  through  the  desert  thus  it  was, 

As  I  came  through  the  desert :  Meteors  ran 

And  crossed  their  javelins  on  the  black  sky -span  ; 

The  zenith  opened  to  a  gulf  of  flame, 

The  dreadful  thunderbolts  jarred  earth's  fixed  frame  : 

The  ground  all  heaved  in  waves  of  fire  that  surged 

And  weltered  round  me  sole  there  unsubmerged  : 

Yet  I  strode  on  austere; 

No  hope  could  have  no  fear. 

As  I  came  through  the  desert  thus  it  was, 

As  I  came  through  the  desert :  Air  once  more, 

And  I  was  close  upon  a  wild  sea-shore  ; 

Enormous  cliffs  arose  on  either  hand. 

The  deep  tide  thundered  up  a  league-broad  strand  ; 

White  foambelts  seethed  there,  wan  spray  swept  and 

flew ; 
The  sky  broke,  moon  and  stars  and  clouds  and  blue  : 

And  I  strode  on  austere ; 

No  hope  could  have  no  fear. 

As  I  came  through  the  desert  thus  it  was, 
As  I  came  through  the  desert :  On  the  left 


14 


THE    CITY    OF    DREADFUL    NIGHT 

The  sun  arose  and  crowned  a  broad  crag-cleft ; 
There  stopped  and  burned  out  black,  except  a  rim, 
A  bleeding  eyeless  socket,  red  and  dim  ; 
Whereon  the  moon  fell  suddenly  south-west, 
And  stood  above  the  right-hand  cliffs  at  rest : 

Still  I  strode  on  austere  ; 

No  hope  could  have  no  fear.   > 

As  I  came  through  the  desert  thus  it  was, 
As  I  came  through  the  desert :  From  the  right 
A  shape  came  slowly  with  a  ruddy  light ; 
A  woman  with  a  red  lamp  in  her  hand. 
Bareheaded  and  barefooted  on  that  strand  ; 
O  desolation  moving  with  such  grace  1 
O  anguish  with  such  beauty  in  thy  face. 
I  fell  as  on  my  bier, 
Hope  travailed  w'ith  such  fear.  / 

As  I  came  through  the  desert  thus  it  was, 
As  I  came  through  the  desert :  I  was  twain, 
Two  selves  distinct  that  cannot  join  again  ; 
One  stood  apart  and  knew  but  could  not  stir. 
And  watched  the  other  stark  in  swoon  and  her  ; 
And  she  came  on,  and  never  turned  aside, 
Between  such  sun  and  moon  and  roaring  tide  : 
And  as  she  came  more  near 
My  soul  grew  mad  with  fear.    ^ 

As  I  came  through  the  desert  thus  it  was. 
As  I  came  through  the  desert :  Hell  is  mild 


THE  CITY  OF  DREADFUL  NIGHT 

And  piteous  matched  with  that  accursed  wild ; 
A  large  black  sign  was  on  her  breast  that  bowed, 
A  broad  black  band  ran  down  her  snow-white  shroud  ; 
That  lamp  she  held  was  her  own  burning  heart, 
Whose  blood-drops  trickled  step  by  step  apart; 

The  mystery  was  clear  ; 

Mad  rage  had  swallowed  fear. 

As  I  came  through  the  desert  thus  it  was. 
As  I  came  through  the  desert :  By  the  sea 
She  knelt  and  bent  above  that  senseless  me ; 
Those  lamp-drops  fell  upon  my  white  brow  there. 
She  tried  to  cleanse  them  with  her  tears  and  hair ; 
She  murmured  words  of  pity,  love,  and  woe. 
She  heeded  not  the  level  rushing  flow  : 

And  mad  with  rage  and  fear, 
I  stood  stonebound  so  near. 

As  I  came  through  the  desert  thus  it  was, 
As  I  came  through  the  desert :  When  the  tide 
Swept  up  to  her  there  kneeling  by  my  side. 
She  clasped  that  corpse-like  me,  and  they  were  borne 
Away,  and  this  vile  me  was  left  forlorn  ; 
I  know  the  whole  sea  cannot  quench  that  heart, 
Or  cleanse  that  brow,  or  wash  those  two  apart : 
They  love  ;  their  doom  is  drear, 
Yet  they  nor  hope  nor  fear  ; 
But  I,  what  do  I  here  ? 


How  he  arrives  there  none  can  clearly  know; 
Athwart  the  mountains  and  immense  wild  tracts, 
Or  flung  a  waif  upon  that  vast  sea-flow, 
Or  down  the  river's  boiling  cataracts  : 
To  reach  it  is  as  dying  fever-stricken ; 
To  leave  it,  slow  faint  birth  intense  pangs  quicken  ; 
And  memory  swoons  in  both  the  tragic  acts. 

But  being  there  one  feels  a  citizen  ; 

Escape  seems  hopeless  to  the  heart  forlorn : 
Can  Death-in-Life  be  brought  to  life  again  ? 

And  yet  release  does  some  ;  there  comes  a  morn 
When  he  awakes  from  slumbering  so  sweetly 
That  all  the  world  is  changed  for  him  completely, 

And  he  is  verily  as  if  new-born. 

He  scarcely  can  believe  the  blissful  change. 

He  weeps  perchance  who  wept  not  while  accurst ; 

Never  again  will  he  approach  the  range 
Infested  by  that  evil  spell  now  burst : 

Poor  wretch  I  who  once  hath  paced  that  dolent  city 

Shall  pace  it  often,  doomed  beyond  all  pity. 
With  horror  ever  deepening  from  the  first. 

Though  he  possess  sweet  babes  and  loving  wife, 
A  home  of  peace  by  loyal  friendships  cheered,    , 

And  love  them  more  than  death  or  happy  life,        | 
They  shall  avail  not ;  he  must  dree  his  weird  ; 


17 


THE    CITY    OF    DREADFUL    NIGHT 

Renounce  all  blessings  for  that  imprecation, 
Steal  forth  and  haunt  that  builded  desolation, 
Of  woe  and  terrors  and  thick  darkness  reared : 


i8 


VI 


I  SAT  forlornly  by  the  river-side, 
And   watched  the  bridge-lamps  glow  like  golden 
stars 
Above  the  blackness  of  the  swelling  tide, 

Down  which  they  struck  rough  gold  in  ruddier  bars ; 
And  heard  the  heave  and  plashing  of  the  flow 
Against  the  wall  a  dozen  feet  below. 

Large  elm-trees  stood  along  that  river-walk  ; 

And  under  one,  a  few  steps  from  my  seat, 
I  heard  strange  voices  join  in  stranger  talk, 

Although  I  had  not  heard  approaching  feet  : 
These  bodiless  voices  in  my  waking  dream 
Flowed     dark     words     blending     with     the     sombre 


And  you  have  after  all  come  back  ;  come  back. 

I  was  about  to  follow  on  your  track. 

And  you  have  failed  :  our  spark  of  hope  is  black. 

That  I  have  failed  is  proved  by  my  return  : 
The  spark  is  quenched,  nor  ever  more  will  burn. 
But  listen  ;  and  the  story  you  shall  learn. 

I  reached  the  portal  common  spirits  fear. 

And  read  the  words  above  it,  dark  yet  clear,     / 

"Leave  hope  behind,  all  ye  who  enter  here  :  '7 


19 


THE  CITY  OF  DREADFUL  NIGHT 

And  would  have  passed  in,  gratified  to  gain 
That  positive  eternity  of  pain, 
Instead  of  this  insufferable  inane. 

A  demon  warder  clutched  me,  Not  so  fast ; 

First  leave  your  hopes  behind  ! — But  years  have  passed 

Since  I  left  all  behind  me,  to  the  last : 

You  cannot  count  for  hope,  with  all  your  wit, 
This  bleak  despair  that  drives  me  to  the  Pit : 
How  could  I  seek  to  enter  void  of  it  ? 

He  snarled,  What  thing  is  this  which  apes  a  soul, 
And  would  find  entrance  to  our  gulf  of  dole 
Without  the  payment  of  the  settled  toll  ? 

Outside  the  gate  he  showed  an  open  chest : 
Here  pay  their  entrance  fees  the  souls  unblest ; 
Cast  in  some  hope,  you  enter  with  the  rest. 

This  is  Pandora's  box ;  whose  lid  shall  shut, 
And  Hell-gate  too,  when  hopes  have  filled  it ;  but 
They  are  so  thin  that  it  will  never  glut. 

I  stood  a  few  steps  backwards,  desolate  ;     ' 
And  watched  the  spirits  pass  me  to  their  fate. 
And  fling  off  hope,  and  enter  at  the  gate. 

When  one  casts  off  a  load  he  springs  upright. 
Squares  back  his  shoulders,  breathes  with  all  his  might, 
And  briskly  paces  forward  strong  and  light : 


THE  CITY  OF  DREADFUL  NIGHT 

But  these,  as  if  they  took  some  burden,  bowed ; 
The  whole  frame  sank  ;  however  strong  and  proud 
Before,  they  crept  in  quite  infirm  and  cowed. 

And  as  they  passed  me,  earnestly  from  each 

A  morsel  of  his  hope  I  did  beseech, 

To  pay  my  entrance  ;  but  all  mocked  my  speech. 

Not  one  would  cede  a  tittle  of  his  store, 
Though  knowing  that  in  instants  three  or  four 
He  must  resign  the  whole  for  evermore. 

So  I  returned.     Our  destiny  is  fell ; 

For  in  this  Limbo  we  must  ever  dwell. 

Shut  out  alike  from  Heaven  and  Earth  and  Hell. 

The  other  sighed  back,  Yea;  but  if  we  grope 
With  care  through  all  this  Limbo's  dreary  scope, 
We  yet  may  pick  up  some  minute  lost  hope  ; 

And,  sharing  it  between  us,  entrance  win, 
In  spite  of  fiends  so  jealous  for  gross  sin  : 
Let  us  without  delay  our  search  begin. 


VII 


SOME  say  that  phantoms  haunt  those  shadowy  streets, 
And  mmgle  freely  there  with  sparse  mankind  ; 
And  tell  of  ancient  woes  and  black  defeats, 

And  murmur  mysteries  in  the  grave  enshrined  : 
But  others  think  them  visions  of  illusion, 
Or  even  men  gone  far  in  self-confusion  ; 
No  man  there  being  wholly  sane  in  mind. 

And  yet  a  man  who  raves,  however  mad, 

Who  bares  his  heart  and  tells  of  his  own  fall, 

Reserves  some  inmost  secret  good  or  bad  : 
The  phantoms  have  no  reticence  at  all  : 

The  nudity  of  flesh  will  blush  though  tameless. 

The  extreme  nudity  of  bone  grins  shameless, 
The  unsexed  skeleton  mocks  shroud  and  pall. 

I  have  seen  phantoms  there  that  were  as  men 
And  men  that  were  as  phantoms  flit  and  roam; 

Marked  shapes  that  were  not  living  to  my  ken, 
Caught  breathings  acrid  as  with  Dead  Sea  foam  : 

The  City  rests  for  man  so  weird  and  awful, 

That  his  intrusion  there  might  seem  unlawful, 

And  phantoms  there  may  have  their  proper  home. 


VIII 

WHILE  I  Still  lingered  on  that  river-walk, 
And  watched  the  tide  as  black  as  our  black 
doom, 
I  heard  another  couple  join  in  talk, 

And  saw  them  to  the  left  hand  in  the  gloom 
Seated  against  an  elm  bole  on  the  ground, 
Their  eyes  intent  upon  the  stream  profound. 

"I  never  knew  another  man  on  earth 

But  had  some  joy  and  solace  in  his  life, 
Some  chance  of  triumph  in  the  dreadful  strife  : 
My  doom  has  been  unmitigated  dearth." 

"We  gaze  upon  the  river,  and  we  note 
The  various  vessels  large  and  small  that  float, 
Ignoring  every  wrecked  and  sunken  boat." 

"And  yet  I  asked  no  splendid  dower,  no  spoil 
Of  sway  or  fame  or  rank  or  even  wealth ; 
But  homely  love  with  common  food  and  health, 
And  nightly  sleep  to  balance  daily  toil." 

"This  ail-too  humble  soul  would  arrogate 
Unto  itself  some  signalising  hate 
From  the  supreme  indifference  of  Fate  !  " 

"Who  is  most  wretched  in  this  dolorous  place  ? 
I  think  myself ;  yet  I  would  rather  be 


THE  CITY  OF  DREADFUL  NIGHT 

My  miserable  self  than  He,  than  He 
Who  formed  such  creatures  to  His  own  disgrace. 

'•The  vilest  thing  must  be  less  vile  than  Thou 
From  whom  it  had  its  being,  God  and  Lord  ! 
jf  Creator  of  all  woe  and  sin  I  abhorred. 

Malignant  and  implacable  !     I  vow 

"That  not  for  all  Thy  power  furled  and  unfurled, 
For  all  the  temples  to  Thy  glory  built. 
Would  I  assume  the  ignominious  guilt 
Of  having  made  such  men  in  such  a  world." 

"As  if  a  Being,  God  or  Fiend,  could  reign. 
At  once  so  wicked,  foolish,  and  insane. 
As  to  produce  men  when  He  might  refrain! 

"The  world  rolls  round  for  ever  like  a  mill ;  ' 
It  grinds  out  death  and  life  and  good  and  ill ; 
It  has  no  purpose,  heart  or  mind  or  will. 

"While  air  of  Space  and  Time's  full  river  flow 
The  mill  must  blindly  whirl  unresting  so  : 
It  may  be  wearing  out,  but  who  can  know .-' 

"Man  might  know  one  thing  were  his  sight  less  dim  ; 
That  it  whirls  not  to  suit  his  petty  whim. 
That  it  is  quite  indifferent  to  him. 

"Nay,  does  it  treat  him  harshly  as  he  saith  .'' 
It  grinds  him  some  slow  years  of  bitter  breath. 
Then  grinds  him  back  into  eternal  death." 


24 


IX 


IT  is  full  strange  to  him  who  hears  and  feels, 
When  wandering  there  in  some  deserted  street, 
The  booming  and  the  jar  of  ponderous  wheels, 
The  trampling  clash  of  heavy  ironshod  feet : 
Who  in  this  Venice  of  the  Black  Sea  rideth  ? 
Who  in  this  city  of  the  stars  abideth 

To  buy  or  sell  as  those  in  daylight  sweet  ? 

The  rolling  thunder  seems  to  fill  the  sky 
As  it  comes  on  ;  the  horses  snort  and  strain, 

The  harness  jingles,  as  it  passes  by ; 

The  hugeness  of  an  overburthened  wain : 

A  man  sits  nodding  on  the  shaft  or  trudges 

Three  parts  asleep  beside  his  fellow -drudges  : 
And  so  it  rolls  into  the  night  again. 

What  merchandise  ?  whence,  whither,  and  for  whom  ? 

Perchance  it  is  a  Fate-appointed  hearse, 
Bearing  away  to  some  mysterious  tomb 

Or  Limbo  of  the  scornful  universe 
The  joy,  the  peace,  the  life-hope,  the  abortions 
Of  all  things  good  which  should  have  been  our  portions, 

But  have  been  strangled  by  that  City's  curse. 


25 


THE  mansion  stood  apart  in  its  own  ground ; 
In  front  thereof  a  fragrant  garden-lawn, 
High  trees  about  it,  and  the  whole  walled  round  : 

The  massy  iron  gates  were  both  withdrawn  ; 
And  every  window  of  its  front  shed  light, 
Portentous  in  that  City  of  the  Night. 

But  though  thus  lighted  it  was  deadly  still 
As  all  the  countless  bulks  of  solid  gloom  : 

Perchance  a  congregation  to  fulfil 
Solemnities  of  silence  in  this  doom, 

Mysterious  rites  of  dolour  and  despair 

Permitting  not  a  breath  of  chant  or  prayer  ? 

Broad  steps  ascended  to  a  terrace  broad 
Whereon  lay  still  light  from  the  open  door ; 

The  hall  w^as  noble,  and  its  aspect  awed,  :, 

Hung  round  with  heavy  black  from  dome  to  floor; 

And  ample  stairways  rose  to  left  and  right 

Whose  balustrades  were  also  draped  with  night. 

I  paced  from  room  to  room,  from  hall  to  hall. 
Nor  any  life  throughout  the  maze  discerned ; 

But  each  was  hung  with  its  funereal  pall, 

And  held  a  shrine,  around  which  tapers  burned. 

With  picture  or  with  statue  or  w'ith  bust. 

All  copied  from  the  same  fair  form  of  dust : 


26 


THE  CITY  OF  DREADFUL  NIGHT 

A  woman  very  young  and  very  fair  ; 

Beloved  by  bounteous  life  and  joy  and  youth, 
And  loving  these  sv^eet  lovers,  so  that  care 

And  age  and  death  seemed  not  for  her  in  sooth  : 
Alike  as  stars,  all  beautiful  and  bright, 
These  shapes  lit  up  that  mausolean  night. 

At  length  I  heard  a  murmur  as  of  lips, 

And  reached  an  open  oratory  hung 
With  heaviest  blackness  of  the  whole  eclipse  ; 

Beneath  the  dome  a  fuming  censer  swung ; 
And  one  lay  there  upon  a  low  white  bed. 
With  tapers  burning  at  the  foot  and  head  : 

The  Lady  of  the  images  :  supine, 

Deathstill,  lifesweet,  with  folded  palms  she  lay  : 
And  kneeling  there  as  at  a  sacred  shrine 

A  young  man  wan  and  worn  who  seemed  to  pray 
A  crucifix  of  dim  and  ghostly  white 
Surmounted  the  large  altar  left  in  night :  — 

The  chambers  of  the  mansion  of  my  heart, 
In  every  one  whereof  thine  image  dwells. 
Are  black  with  grief  eternal  for  thy  sake. 

The  inmost  oratory  of  my  soul, 

Wherein  thou  ever  dwellest  quick  or  dead. 

Is  black  with  grief  eternal  for  thy  sake. 

I  kneel  beside  thee  and  I  clasp  the  cross, 
With  eyes  for  ever  fixed  upon  that  face. 
So  beautiful  and  dreadful  in  its  calm. 


THE  CITY  OF  DREADFUL  NIGHT 

I  kneel  here  patient  as  thou  liest  there ; 
As  patient  as  a  statue  carved  in  stone, 
Of  adoration  and  eternal  grief. 

While  thou  dost  not  awake  I  cannot  move ; 
And  something  tells  me  thou  wilt  never  wake, 
And  I  alive  feel  turning  into  stone. 

Most  beautiful  were  Death  to  end  my  grief, 
Most  hateful  to  destroy  the  sight  of  thee, 
Dear  vision  better  than  all  death  or  life. 

But  I  renounce  all  choice  of  life  or  death. 
For  either  shall  be  ever  at  thy  side. 
And  thus  in  bliss  or  woe  be  ever  well. — 

He  murmured  thus  and  thus  in  monotone, 

Intent  upon  that  uncorrupted  face, 
Entranced  except  his  moving  lips  alone  : 

I  glided  with  hushed  footsteps  from  the  place. 
This  was  the  festival  that  filled  vf'ith  light 
That  palace  in  the  City  of  the  Night. 


28 


XI 

WHAT  men  are  they  who  haunt  these  fatal  glooms,       ^ 
And  fill  their  living  mouths  with  dust  of  death, 
And  make  their  habitations  in  the  tombs, 

And  breathe  eternal  sighs  with  mortal  breath, 
And  pierce  life's  pleasant  veil  of  various  error 
To  reach  that  void  of  darkness  and  old  terror 
Wherein  expire  the  lamps  of  hope  and  faith  ? 

They  have  much  wisdom  yet  they  are  not  wise. 
They  have  much  goodness  yet  they  do  not  well, 

(The  fools  we  know  have  their  own  Paradise, 
The  wicked  also  have  their  proper  Hell)  ; 

They    have    much   strength    but   still   their    doom    is 
stronger, 

Much  patience  but  their  time  endureth  longer. 
Much  valour  but  life  mocks  it  with  some  spell. 

They  are  most  rational  and  yet  insane  :  \ 

An  outward  madness  not  to  be  controlled  ;     | 

A  perfect  reason  in  the  central  brain, 

Which  has  no  power,  but  sitteth  wan  and  cold, 

And  sees  the  madness,  and  foresees  as  plainly 

The  ruin  in  its  path,  and  trieth  vainly 
To  cheat  itself  refusing  to  behold. 

And  some  are  great  in  rank  and  wealth  and  power, 
And  some  renowned  for  genius  and  for  worth  ; 

And  some  are  poor  and  mean,  who  brood  and  cower 
And  shrink  from  notice,  and  accept  all  dearth 


29 


THE   CITY    OF    DREADFUL    NIGHT 

Of  body,  heart  and  soul,  and  leave  to  others 
All  boons  of  life  :  yet  these  and  those  are  brothers, 
The  saddest  and  the  weariest  men  on  earth. 


30 


XII 

OUR  isolated  units  could  be  brought 
To  act  together  for  some  common  end  ? 
For  one  by  one,  each  silent  with  his  thought, 

I  marked  a  long  loose  line  approach  and  wend 
Athwart  the  great  cathedral's  cloistered  square, 
And  slowly  vanish  from  the  moonlit  air. 

Then  I  would  follow  in  among  the  last : 

And  in  the  porch  a  shrouded  figure  stood, 
Who  challenged  each  one  pausing  ere  he  passed. 

With  deep  eyes  burning  through  a  blank  white  hood 
Whence  come  you  in  the  world  of  life  and  light 
To  this  our  City  of  Tremendous  Night  ? — n 

i 
From  pleading  in  a  senate  of  rich  lords 
For  some  scant  justice  to  our  countless  hordes 
Who  toil  half-starved  with  scarce  a  human  right : 
I  wake  from  daydreams  to  this  real  night. 

From  wandering  through  many  a  solemn  scene 

Of  opium  visions,  with  a  heart  serene 

And  intellect  miraculously  bright  : 

I  wake  from  daydreams  to  this  real  night. 

From  making  hundreds  laugh  and  roar  with  glee 
By  my  transcendent  feats  of  mimicry, 
And  humour  wanton  as  an  elfish  sprite  : 
I  wake  from  daydreams  to  this  real  night. 


A^ 


THE  CITY  OF  DREADFUL  NIGHT 

From  prayer  and  fasting  in  a  lonely  cell, 
Which  brought  an  ecstasy  ineffable 
Of  love  and  adoration  and  delight : 
I  wake  from  daydreams  to  this  real  night. 

From  ruling  on  a  splendid  kingly  throne 
A  nation  which  beneath  my  rule  has  grown 
V'ear  after  year  in  wealth  and  arts  and  might : 
I  wake  from  daydreams  to  this  real  night. 

From  preaching  to  an  audience  fired  with  faith 
The  Lamb  who  died  to  save  our  souls  from  death, 
Whose  blood  hath  washed  our  scarlet  sins  wool-white  : 
I  wake  from  daydreams  to  this  real  night. 

From  drinking  fiery  poison  in  a  den 
Crowded  with  tawdry  girls  and  squalid  men, 
Who  hoarsely  laugh  and  curse  and  brawl  and  fight : 
I  wake  from  daydreams  to  this  real  night. 

From  picturing  with  all  beauty  and  all  grace 
First  Eden  and  the  parents  of  our  race, 
A  luminous  rapture  unto  all  men's  sight : 
I  wake  from  daydreams  to  this  real  night. 

From  writing  a  great  work  with  patient  plan 
To  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  man, 
And  show  how  ill  must  fade  and  perish  quite  : 
I  wake  from  daydreams  to  this  real  night. 


32 


THE    CITY    OF    DREADFUL    NIGHT 

From  desperate  fighting  with  a  little  band 
Against  the  powerful  tyrants  of  our  land, 
To  free  our  brethren  in  their  own  despite  : 
I  wake  from  daydreams  to  this  real  night. 

Thus,  challenged  by  that  warder  sad  and  stern, 
Each  one  responded  with  his  countersign, 

Then  entered  the  cathedral ;  and  in  turn 
I  entered  also,  having  given  mine  ; 

But  lingered  near  until  I  heard  no  more, 

And  marked  the  closing  of  the  massive  door. 


33 


XIII 

OF  all  things  human  which  are  strange  and  wild 
This  is  perchance  the  wildest  and  most  strange, 
And  showeth  man  most  utterly  beguiled, 

To  those  who  haunt  that  sunless  City's  range  ; 
That  he  bemoans  himself  for  aye,  repeating 
How  time  is  deadly  swift,  how  life  is  fleeting. 

How  naught  is  constant  on  the  earth  but  change. 

The  hours  are  heavy  on  him  and  the  days  ; 

The  burden  of  the  months  he  scarce  can  bear ; 
And  often  in  his  secret  soul  he  prays 

To  sleep  through  barren  periods  unaware, 
Arousing  at  some  longed-for  date  of  pleasure  ; 
Which  having  passed  and  yielded  him  small  treasure, 

He  would  outsleep  another  term  of  care. 

Yet  in  his  marvellous  fancy  he  must  make 
Quick  wings  for  Time,  and  see  it  fly  from  us  ; 

This  Time  which  craw^leth  like  a  monstrous  snake, 
Wounded  and  slow  and  very  venomous  ; 

Which  creeps  blindwormlike  round  the  earth  and  ocean, 

Distilling  poison  at  each  painful  motion, 
And  seems  condemned  to  circle  ever  thus. 

And  since  he  cannot  spend  and  use  aright 

The  little  time  here  given  him  in  trust, 
But  wasteth  it  in  weary  undelight 

Of  foolish  toil  and  trouble,  strife  and  lust, 


34 


I         THE  CITY  OF  DREADFUL  NIGHT 

I! 

|i        He  naturally  claimeth  to  inherit 

I        The  everlasting  Future,  that  his  merit 

May  have  full  scope;  as  surely  is  most  just. 

O  length  of  the  intolerable  hours, 

O  nights  that  are  as  aeons  of  slow  pain, 

O  Time,  too  ample  for  our  vital  powers, 
O  Life,  whose  woeful  vanities  remain 

Immutable  for  all  of  all  our  legions 

Through  all  the  centuries  and  in  all  the  regions, 
Not  of  your  speed  and  variance  we  complain. 

IVe  do  not  ask  a  longer  term  of  strife, 
Weakness  and  weariness  and  nameless  woes : 

We  do  not  claim  renewed  and  endless  life 

When  this  which  is  our  torment  here  shall  close, 

An  everlasting  conscious  inanition  ! 

We  yearn  for  speedy  death  in  full  fruition. 
Dateless  oblivion  and  divine  repose. 


35 


XIV 

LARGE  glooms  were  gathered  in  the  mighty  fane, 
With  tinted  moongleams  slanting  here  and  there ; 
And  all  was  hush  :  no  swelling  organ- strain, 

No  chant,  no  voice  or  murmuring  of  prayer  ; 
No  priests  came  forth,  no  tinkling  censers  fumed. 
And  the  high  altar  space  was  unillumed. 

Around  the  pillars  and  against  the  walls 

Leaned  men  and  shadows  ;  others  seemed  to  brood 

Bent  or  recumbent  in  secluded  stalls. 

Perchance  they  were  not  a  great  multitude 

Save  in  that  city  of  so  lonely  streets 

Where  one  may  count  up  every  face  he  meets. 

All  patiently  awaited  the  event 

Without  a  stir  or  sound,  as  if  no  less 
Self-occupied,  doomstricken,  while  attent. 

And  then  we  heard  a  voice  of  solemn  stress 
From  the  dark  pulpit,  and  our  gaze  there  met 
,y      Two  eyes  which  burned  as  never  eyes  burned  yet: 

Two  steadfast  and  intolerable  eyes 

Burning  beneath  a  broad  and  rugged  brow ; 

The  head  behind  it  of  enormous  size. 

And  as  black  fir-groves  in  a  large  wind  bow, 

Our  rooted  congregation,  gloom-arrayed. 

By  that  great  sad  voice  deep  and  full  were  swayed  :  — 

36 


THE    CITY   OF    DREADFUL    NIGHT 

O  melancholy  Brothers,  dark,  dark,  dark  I 
O  battling  in  black  floods  without  an  ark  I 

O  spectral  wanderers  of  unholy  Night  I 
My  soul  hath  bled  for  you  these  sunless  years, 
With  bitter  blood-drops  running  down  like  tears  : 

Oh,  dark,  dark,  dark,  withdrawn  from  joy  and  light  I 

My  heart  is  sick  with  anguish  for  your  bale; 
Your  woe  hath  been  my  anguish ;  yea,  I  quail 

And  perish  in  your  perishing  unblest. 
And  I  have  searched  the  highths  and  depths,  the  scope 
Of  all  our  universe,  with  desperate  hope 

To  find  some  solace  for  your  wild  unrest. 

And  now  at  last  authentic  word  I  bring, 
Witnessed  by  every  dead  and  living  thing; 

Good  tidings  of  great  joy  for  you,  for  all  : 
There  is  no  God  ;  no  Fiend  with  names  divine- ""i  ] 
Made  us  and  tortures  us  ;  if  we  must  pine,  / 

It  is  to  satiate  no  Being's  gall. 

It  was  the  dark  delusion  of  a  dream, 
That  living  Person  conscious  and  supreme, 

Whom  we  must  curse  for  cursing  us  with  life ; 
Whom  we  must  curse  because  the  life  He  gave 
Could  not  be  buried  in  the  quiet  grave. 

Could  not  be  killed  by  poison  or  by  knife. 

This  little  life  is  all  we  must  endure,  i 

The  grave's  most  holy  peace  is  ever  sure, 
We  fall  asleep  and  never  wake  again  ; 


37 


THE    CITY   OF    DREADFUL    NIGHT 

Nothing  is  of  us  but  the  mouldering  flesh, 
Whose  elements  dissolve  and  merge  afresh 
In  earth,  air,  water,  plants,  and  other  men. 

We  finish  thus  ;  and  all  our  wretched  race 
Shall  finish  with  its  cycle,  and  give  place 

To  other  beings,  with  their  own  time-doom 
Infinite  aeons  ere  our  kind  began  ; 
Infinite  aeons  after  the  last  man 

Has  joined  the  mammoth  in  earth's  tomb  and  womb. 

We  bow  down  to  the  universal  laws. 
Which  never  had  for  man  a  special  clause 

Of  cruelty  or  kindness,  love  or  hate  : 
If  toads  and  vultures  are  obscene  to  sight, 
If  tigers  bum  with  beauty  and  with  might. 

Is  it  by  favour  or  by  wrath  of  fate  .'' 

All  substance  lives  and  struggles  evermore 
Through  countless  shapes  continually  at  war. 

By  countless  interactions  interknit : 
If  one  is  born  a  certain  day  on  earth, 
All  times  and  forces  tended  to  that  birth. 

Not  all  the  world  could  change  or  hinder  it. 

I  find  no  hint  throughout  the  Universe 
Of  good  or  ill,  of  blessing  or  of  curse; 

I  find  alone  Necessity  Supreme  ; 
With  infinite  Mystery,  abysmal,  dark, 
Unlighted  ever  by  the  faintest  spark 

For  us  the  flitting  shadows  of  a  dream. 


38 


THE  CITY  OF  DREADFUL  NIGHT 

O  Brothers  of  sad  lives  !  they  are  so  brief;     , 
A  few  short  years  must  bring  us  all  relief :    / 

Can  we  not  bear  these  years  of  labouring  breath  ? 
But  if  you  would  not  this  poor  life  fulfil, 
Lo,  you  are  free  to  end  it  when  you  will, 

"Without  the  fear  of  waking  after  death. — 

The  organ-like  vibrations  of  his  voice 

Thrilled  through  the  vaulted  aisles  and  died  away 
The  yearning  of  the  tones  which  bade  rejoice 

Was  sad  and  tender  as  a  requiem  lay  : 
Our  shadowy  congregation  rested  still 
As  brooding  on  that  "End  it  when  you  will." 


39 


XV 


WHEREVER  men  are  gathered,  all  the  air 
Is  charged  with  human  feeling,  human  thought 
Each  shout  and  cry  and  laugh,  each  curse  and  prayer, 

Are  into  its  vibrations  surely  wrought ; 
Unspoken  passion,  wordless  meditation. 
Are  breathed  into  it  with  our  respiration  ; 
It  is  with  our  life  fraught  and  overfraught. 

So  that  no  man  there  breathes  earth's  simple  breath, 
As  if  alone  on  mountains  or  wide  seas  ; 

But  nourishes  warm  life  or  hastens  death 

With  joys  and  sorrows,  health  and  foul  disease, 

Wisdom  and  folly,  good  and  evil  labours, 

Incessant  of  his  multitudinous  neighbours ; 
He  in  his  turn  affecting  all  of  these. 

That  City's  atmosphere  is  dark  and  dense, 
Although  not  many  exiles  wander  there, 

With  many  a  potent  evil  influence. 

Each  adding  poison  to  the  poisoned  air ; 

Infections  of  unutterable  sadness. 

Infections  of  incalculable  madness. 
Infections  of  incurable  despair. 


40 


XVI 

OUR  shadowy  congregation  rested  still, 
As  musing  on  that  message  we  had  heard 
And  brooding  on  that  "End  it  when  you  will ;" 

Perchance  awaiting  yet  some  other  word  ; 
When  keen  as  lightning  through  a  mufifled  sky 
Sprang  forth  a  shrill  and  lamentable  cry  : — 

The  man  speaks  sooth,  alas  1  the  man  speaks  sooth  :      ) 
We  have  no  personal  life  beyond  the  grave ; 

There  is  no  God  ;  Fate  knows  nor  wrath  nor  ruth  : 
Can  I  find  here  the  comfort  which  I  crave  ? 

In  all  eternity  I  had  one  chance, 

One  few  years'  term  of  gracious  human  life  : 
The  splendours  of  the  intellect's  advance, 

The  sweetness  of  the  home  with  babes  and  wife ; 

The  social  pleasures  with  their  genial  wit ; 

The  fascination  of  the  worlds  of  art, 
The  glories  of  the  worlds  of  nature,  lit 

By  large  imagination's  glowing  heart ; 

The  rapture  of  mere  being,  full  of  health  ; 

The  careless  childhood  and  the  ardent  youth, 
The  strenuous  manhood  winning  various  wealth. 

The  reverend  age  serene  with  life's  long  truth  : 


41 


THE  CITY  OF  DREADFUL  NIGHT 

All  the  sublime  prerogatives  of  Man; 

The  storied  memories  of  the  times  of  old, 
The  patient  tracking  of  the  world's  great  plan 

Through  sequences  and  changes  myriadfold. 

This  chance  was  never  offered  me  before  ; 

For  me  the  infinite  Past  is  blank  and  dumb : 
This  chance  recurreth  never,  nevermore ; 

Blank,  blank  for  me  the  infinite  To-come. 

And  this  sole  chance  was  frustrate  from  my  birth, 
A  mockery,  a  delusion  ;  and  my  breath 

Of  noble  human  life  upon  this  earth  \ 

So  racks  me  that  I  sigh  for  senseless  death. 


My  wine  of  life  is  poison  mixed  with  gall. 
My  noonday  passes  in  a  nightmare  dream, 

I  worse  than  lose  the  years  which  are  my  all : 
What  can  console  me  for  the  loss  supreme  ? 

■     Speak  not  of  comfort  where  no  comfort  is, 

Speak  not  at  all :  can  words  make  foul  things  fair  ? 
Our  life's  a  cheat,  our  death  a  black  abyss  : 
Hush  and  be  mute  envisaging  despair. — 

This  vehement  voice  came  from  the  northern  aisle 
Rapid  and  shrill  to  its  abrupt  harsh  close ; 

And  none  gave  answer  for  a  certain  while, 

For  words  must  shrink  from  these  most  wordless 
woes : 


THE    CITY   OF    DREADFUL    NIGHT 

At  last  the  pulpit  speaker  simply  said, 

With  humid  eyes  and  thoughtful  drooping  head  :- 

My  Brother,  my  poor  Brothers,  it  is  thus ; 
This  life  itself  holds  nothing  good  for  us, 

But  it  ends  soon  and  nevermore  can  be ; 
And  we  knew  nothing  of  it  ere  our  birth, 
And  shall  know  nothing  when  consigned  to  earth 

I  ponder  these  thoughts  and  they  comfort  me. 


43 


XVII 

How  the  moon  triumphs  through  the  endless  nights  1 
How  the  stars  throb  and  glitter  as  they  wheel 
Their  thick  processions  of  supernal  lights 

Around  the  blue  vault  obdurate  as  steel ! 
And  men  regard  with  passionate  awe  and  yearning 
The  mighty  marching  and  the  golden  burning, 
And  think  the  heavens  respond  to  what  they  feel. 

Boats  gliding  like  dark  shadows  of  a  dream, 

Are  glorified  from  vision  as  they  pass 
The  quivering  moonbridge  on  the  deep  black  stream ; 

Cold  windows  kindle  their  dead  glooms  of  glass 
To  restless  crystals  ;  cornice,  dome,  and  column 
Emerge  from  chaos  in  the  splendour  solemn  ; 

Like  faery  lakes  gleam  lawns  of  dewy  grass. 

With  .such  a  living  light  these  dead  eyes  shine, 
These  eyes  of  sightless  heaven,  that  as  we  gaze 

We  read  a  pity,  tremulous,  divine, 

Or  cold  majestic  scorn  in  their  pure  rays  : 

Fond  man  1  they  are  not  haughty,  are  not  tender  ; 

There  is  no  heart  or  mind  in  all  their  splendour, 

They  thread  mere  puppets  all  their  marvellous  maze. 

If  w^e  could  near  them  with  the  flight  unflown, 
We  should  but  find  them  worlds  as  sad  as  this. 

Or  suns  all  self -consuming  like  our  own 
Enringed  by  planet  worlds  as  much  amiss  : 


44 


THE   CITY    OF   DREADFUL    NIGHT 

They  wax  and  wane  through  fusion  and  confusion 
The  spheres  eternal  are  a  grand  illusion, 

The  empyrean  is  a  void  abyss.  / 


45 


XVIII 

IWANDEREf)  in  a  suburb  of  the  north, 
And  reached  a  spot  whence  three  close  lanes  led 
down, 
Beneath  thick  trees  and  hedgerows  winding  forth 

Like  deep  brook  channels,  deep  and  dark  and  lown  : 
The  air  above  was  w'an  with  misty  light, 
The  dull  grey  south  showed  one  vague  blur  of  white. 

I  took  the  left-hand  lane  and  slowly  trod 
Its  earthern  footpath,  brushing  as  I  went 

The  humid  leafage  ;  and  my  feet  were  shod 
With  heavy  languor,  and  my  frame  downbent. 

With  infinite  sleepless  weariness  outworn, 

So  many  nights  I  thus  had  paced  forlorn. 

After  a  hundred  steps  I  grew  aware 

Of  something  crawling  in  the  lane  below  ; 

It  seemed  a  wounded  creature  prostrate  there 
That  sobbed  with  pangs  in  making  progress  slow. 

The  hind  limbs  stretched  to  push,  the  fore  limbs  then 

To  drag  ;  for  it  would  die  in  its  own  den. 

But  coming  level  with  it  I  discerned 

That  it  had  been  a  man  ;  for  at  my  tread 

It  stopped  in  its  sore  travail  and  half-turned, 
Leaning  upon  its  right,  and  raised  its  head. 

And  with  the  left  hand  twitched  back  as  in  ire 

Long  grey  unreverend  locks  befouled  with  mire. 


46 


THE  CITY  OF  DREADFUL  NIGHT 

A  haggard  filthy  face  with  bloodshot  eyes, 

An  infamy  for  manhood  to  behold. 
He  gasped  all  trembling,  What,  you  want  my  prize  ? 

You  leave,  to  rob  me,  wine  and  lust  and  gold 
And  all  that  men  go  mad  upon,  since  you 
Have  traced  my  sacred  secret  of  the  clue  ? 


You  think  that  I  am  weak  and  must  submit ; 

Yet  I  but  scratch  you  with  this  poisoned  blade, 
And  you  are  dead  as  if  I  clove  with  it 

That  false  fierce  greedy  heart.    Betrayed  !  betrayed  I 
I  fling  this  phial  if  you  seek  to  pass, 
And  you  are  forthwith  shrivelled  up  like  grass. 

And   then   with  sudden   change,  Take  thought !  take 
thought  I 

Have  pity  on  me  !  it  is  mine  alone. 
If  you  could  find,  it  would  avail  you  naught ; 

Seek  elsewhere  on  the  pathway  of  your  own: 
For  who  of  mortal  or  immortal  race 
The  lifetrack  of  another  can  retrace  ? 


Did  you  but  know  my  agony  and  toil ! 

Two  lanes  diverge  up  yonder  from  this  lane ; 
My  thin  blood  marks  the  long  length  of  their  soil ; 

Such  clue  I  left,  who  sought  my  clue  in  vain  : 
My  hands  and  knees  are  worn  both  flesh  and  bone ; 
I  cannot  move  but  with  continual  moan. 


47 


THE  CITY  OF  DREADFUL  NIGHT 

But  I  am  in  the  very  way  at  last 

To  find  the  long-lost  broken  golden  thread 
Which  reunites  my  present  with  my  past, 

If  you  but  go  your  own  way.     And  I  said, 
I  will  retire  as  soon  as  you  have  told 
Whereunto  leadeth  this  lost  thread  of  gold. 

And  so  you  know  it  not!  he  hissed  with  scorn; 

I  feared  you,  imbecile  !     It  leads  me  back 
From  this  accursed  night  without  a  morn, 

And  through  the  deserts  which  have  else  no  track. 
And  through  vast  wastes  of  horror- haunted  time, 
To  Eden  innocence  in  Eden's  clime  : 

And  I  become  a  nursling  soft  and  pure, 
An  infant  cradled  on  its  mother's  knee, 

Without  a  past,  love-cherished  and  secure ; 
Which  if  it  saw  this  loathsome  present  Me, 

Would  plunge  its  face  into  the  pillowing  breast. 

And  scream  abhorrence  hard  to  lull  to  rest. 

He  turned  to  grope;  and  I  retiring  brushed 

Thin  shreds  of  gossamer  from  off  my  face, 
And  mused,  His  life  would  grow,  the  germ  uncrushed  ; 
He  should  to  antenatal  night  retrace. 
And  hide  his  elements  in  that  large  womb 
Beyond  the  reach  of  man- evolving  Doom. 

And  even  thus,  what  weary  way  were  planned. 
To  seek  oblivion  through  the  far-off  gate 


48 


THE  CITY  OF  DREADFUL  NIGHT 

Of  birth,  when  that  of  death  is  close  at  hand  I 

For  this  is  law,  if  law  there  be  in  Fate : 
What  never  has  been,  yet  may  have  its  when;,- 
The  thing  which  has  been,  never  is  again.      / 


49 


XIX 

THE  mighty  river  flowing  dark  and  deep, 
With  ebb  and  flood  from  the  remote  sea-tides 
Vague-sounding  through  the  City's  sleepless  sleep, 

Is  named  the  River  of  the  Suicides  ; 
For  night  by  night  some  lorn  wretch  overweary, 
And  shuddering  from  the  future  yet  more  dreary. 
Within  its  cold  secure  oblivion  hides. 

One  plunges  from  a  bridge's  parapet, 
As  by  some  blind  and  sudden  frenzy  hurled  ; 

Another  wades  in  slow  with  purpose  set 
Until  the  waters  are  above  him  furled ; 

Another  in  a  boat  with  dreamlike  motion 

Glides  drifting  down  into  the  desert  ocean, 
To  starve  or  sink  from  out  the  desert  world. 

They  perish  from  their  suffering  surely  thus. 
For  none  beholding  them  attempts  to  save, 

The  while  each  thinks  how  soon,  solicitous, 
He  may  seek  refuge  in  the  self-same  wave ; 

Some  hour  when  tired  of  ever-vain  endurance 

Impatience  will  forerun  the  sweet  assurance 
Of  perfect  peace  eventual  in  the  grave. 

When  this  poor  tragic-farce  has  palled  us  long,  j 
Why  actors  and  spectators  do  we  stay .''  —      I 

To  fill  our  so-short  roles  out  right  or  wrong;  j 
To  see  what  shifts  are  yet  in  the  dull  play 


^° 


THE  CITY  OF  DREADFUL  NIGHT 

For  our  illusion  ;  to  refrain  from  grieving 
Dear  foolish  friends  by  our  untimely  leaving  : 
But  those  asleep  at  home,  how  blest  are  they  ! 

Yet  it  is  but  for  one  night  after  all : 

What  matters  one  brief  night  of  dreary  pain  ? 
When  after  it  the  weary  eyelids  fall 

Upon  the  weary  eyes  and  wasted  brain  ; 
And  all  sad  scenes  and  thoughts  and  feelings  vanish 
In  that  sweet  sleep  no  power  can  ever  banish, 

That  one  best  sleep  which  never  wakes  again. 


51 


^■^ 


XX 


I    SAT  me  weary  on  a  pillar's  base, 
And  leaned  against  the  shaft ;  for  broad  moonlight 
O'erflowed  the  peacefulness  of  cloistered  space, 

A  shore  of  shadow  slanting  from  the  right : 
The  great  cathedral's  western  front  stood  there, 
A  wave- worn  rock  in  that  calm  sea  of  air. 

Before  it,  opposite  my  place  of  rest, 

Two  figures  faced  each  other,  large,  austere ; 

A  couchant  sphinx  in  shadow  to  the  breast, 
An  angel  standing  in  the  moonlight  clear ; 

So  mighty  by  magnificence  of  form, 

They  were  not  dwarfed  beneath  that  mass  enorm. 

Upon  the  cross-hilt  of  a  naked  sword 

The  angel's  hands,  as  prompt  to  smite,  were  held  ; 
His  vigilant  intense  regard  was  poured 

Upon  the  creature  placidly  unquelled, 
Whose  front  was  set  at  level  gaze  which  took 
No  heed  of  aught,  a  solemn  trance-like  look. 

And  as  I  pondered  these  opposed  shapes 
My  eyelids  sank  in  stupor,  that  dull  swoon 

Which  drugs  and  with  a  leaden  mantle  drapes 
The  outworn  to  worse  weariness.     But  soon 

A  sharp  and  clashing  noise  the  stillness  broke, 

And  from  the  evil  lethargy  I  woke. 


THE  CITY  OF  DREADFUL  NIGHT 

The  anjgel's  wings  had  fallen,  stone  on  stone,  \ 

And  lay  there  shattered;  hence  the  sudden  sound  :  ' 

A  warrior  leaning  on  his  sword  alone  \ 

Now  watched  the  sphinx  with  that  regard  profound  ; 

The  sphinx  unchanged  looked  forthright,  as  aware 

Of  nothing  in  the  vast  abyss  of  air. 

Again  I  sank  in  that  repose  unsweet,  -j- — ~r— -    f^ 

Again  a  clashing  noise  my  slumber  rent ;  ^'"^^ 

The  warrior's  sword  lay  broken  at  his  feet :  '^"^f  ^«'_\  ^^i 
An  unarmed  man  with  raised  hands  impotent    f  ^  A.^A-l^— 

Now  stood  before  the  sphinx,  which  ever  kept 

Such  mien  as  if  with  open  eyes  it  slept. 

My  eyelids  sank  in  spite  of  wonder  grown; 

A  louder  crash  upstartled  me  in  dread  : 
The  man  had  fallen  forward,  stone  on  stone, 

And  lay  there  shattered,  with  his  trunkless  head 
Between  the  monster's  large  quiescent  paws, 
Beneath  its  grand  front  changeless  as  life's  laws. 

The  moon  had  circled  westward  full  and  bright. 
And  made  the  temple-front  a  mystic  dream, 

And  bathed  the  whole  enclosure  with  its  light. 
The  sworded  angel's  wrecks,  the  sphinx  supreme  : 

I  pondered  long  that  cold  majestic  face 

Whose  vision  seemed  of  infinite  void  space. 


53 


XXI 

A  NEAR  the  centre  of  that  northern  crest 
Stands  out  a  level  upland  bleak  and  bare, 
From  which  the  city  east  and  south  and  west 

Sinks  gently  in  long  waves  ;  and  throned  there 
An  Image  sits,  stupendous,  superhuman. 
The  bronze  colossus  of  a  winged  Woman, 
Upon  a  graded  granite  base  foursquare. 

Low-seated  she  leans  forward  massively. 

With  cheek  on  clenched  left  hand,  the  forearm's  might 
Erect,  its  elbow  on  her  rounded  knee  ; 

Across  a  clasped  book  in  her  lap  the  right 
Upholds  a  pair  of  compasses ;  she  gazes 
With  full  set  eyes,  but  wandering  in  thick  mazes 

Of  sombre  thought  beholds  no  outward  sight. 

Words  cannot  picture  her ;  but  all  men  know 
That  solemn  sketch  the  pure  sad  artist  wrought 

Three  centuries  and  threescore  years  ago, 
With  phantasies  of  his  peculiar  thought : 

The  instruments  of  carpentry  and  science 

Scattered  about  her  feet,  in  strange  alliance 

W^ith  the  keen  wolf-hound  sleeping  undistraught ; 

Scales,  hour-glass,  bell,  and  magic-square  above; 

The  grave  and  solid  infant  perched  beside, 
With  open  winglets  that  might  bear  a  dove, 

Intent  upon  its  tablets,  heavy-eyed  ; 


54 


THE   CITY   OF   DREADFUL    NIGHT 

Her  folded  wings  as  of  a  mighty  eagle, 
But  all  too  impotent  to  lift  the  regal 

Robustness  of  her  earth-born  strength  and  pride ; 

And  with  those  wings,  and  that  light  wreath  which  seems 
To  mock  her  grand  head  and  the  knotted  frown 

Of  forehead  charged  with  baleful  thoughts  and  dreams, 
The  household  bunch  of  keys,  the  housewife's  gown 

Voluminous,  indented,  and  yet  rigid 

As  if  a  shell  of  burnished  metal  frigid, 

The  feet  thick  shod  to  tread  all  weakness  down ; 

The  comet  hanging  o'er  the  waste  dark  seas, 
The  massy  rainbow  curved  in  front  of  it, 

Beyond  the  village  with  the  masts  and  trees; 
The  snaky  imp,  dog-headed,  from  the  Pit, 

Bearing  upon  its  batlike  leathern  pinions 

Her  name  unfolded  in  the  sun's  dominions, 
The  "  Melencolia.  "  that  transcends  all  wit. 

Thus  has  the  artist  copied  her,  and  thus 
Surrounded  to  expound  her  form  sublime, 

Her  fate  heroic  and  calamitous  ; 

Fronting  the  dreadful  mysteries  of  Time, 

Unvanquished  in  defeat  and  desolation. 

Undaunted  in  the  hopeless  conflagration 
Of  the  day  setting  on  her  baffled  prime. 

Baflled  and  beaten  back  she  works  on  still. 
Weary  and  sick  of  soul  she  works  the  more, 


55 


THE  CITY  OF  DREADFUL  NIGHT 

Sustained  by  her  indomitable  will : 

The  hands  shall  fashion  and  the  brain  shall  pore 
And  all  her  sorrow  shall  be  turned  to  labour, 
Till  death  the  friend-foe  piercing  with  his  sabre 

That  mighty  heart  of  hearts  ends  bitter  war. 

But  as  if  blacker  night  could  dawn  on  night, 

With  tenfold  gloom  on  moonless  night  unstarred, 

A  sense  more  tragic  than  defeat  and  blight, 
More  desperate  than  strife  with  hope  debarred. 

More  fatal  than  the  adamantine  Never 

Encompassing  her  passionate  endeavour, 
Dawns  glooming  in  her  tenebrous  regard : 

The  sense  that  every  struggle  brings  defeat 
Because  Fate  holds  no  prize  to  crown  success ; 

That  all  the  oracles  are  dumb  or  cheat 
Because  they  have  no  secret  to  express ; 

That  none  can  pierce  the  vast  black  veil  uncertain 

Because  there  is  no  light  beyond  the  curtain ; 
That  all  is  vanity  and  nothingness. 

Titanic  from  her  high  throne  in  the  north, 
That  City's  sombre  Patroness  and  Queen, 

In  bronze  sublimity  she  gazes  forth 
Over  her  Capital  of  teen  and  threne. 

Over  the  river  with  its  isles  and  bridges. 

The  marsh  and  moorland,  to  the  stern  rock-ridges. 
Confronting  them  with  a  coeval  mien. 

56 


THE  CITY  OF  DREADFUL  NIGHT 

The  moving  moon  and  stars  from  east  to  west 

Circle  before  her  in  the  sea  of  air; 
Shadows  and  gleams  glide  round  her  solemn  rest. 

Her  subjects  often  gaze  up  to  her  there  : 
The  strong  to  drink  new  strength  of  iron  endurance, 
The  weak  new  terrors ;  all,  renewed  assurance 

And  confirmation  of  the  old  despair. 


57 


TO  OUR  LADIES  OF  DEATH' 


'Tired  with  all  these,  for  restful  death  I  cry." 

Shakespeare  :  Sonnet  66. 


WEARY  of  erring  in  this  desert  Life, 
Weary  of  hoping  hopes  for  ever  vain, 
Weary  of  struggling  in  all-sterile  strife, 

Weary  of  thought  which  maketh  nothing  plain, 
I  close  my  eyes  and  calm  my  panting  breath, 
And  pray  to  Thee,  O  ever-quiet  Death ! 
To  come  and  soothe  away  my  bitter  pain. 

The  strong  shall  strive,  —  may  they  be  victors  crowned 
The  wise  still  seek,  —  may  they  at  length  find  Truth 

The  young  still  hope,  —  may  purest  love  be  found 
To  make  their  age  more  glorious  than  their  youth. 

For  me  ;  my  brain  is  weak,  my  heart  is  cold, 

My  hope  and  faith  long  dead ;  my  life  but  bold 
In  jest  and  laugh  to  parry  hateful  ruth. 

Over  me  pass  the  days  and  months  and  years 
Like  squadrons  and  battalions  of  the  foe 

Trampling  with  thoughtless  thrusts  and  alien  jeers 
Over  a  wounded  soldier  lying  low  : 

He  grips  his  teeth,  or  flings  them  words  of  scorn 

To  mar  their  triumph  :  but  the  while,  outworn. 
Inwardly  craves  for  death  to  end  his  woe. 


I  The  Three  Ladies  suggested  by  the  sublime  sisterhood 
of  Our  Ladies  of  Sorrow,  in  the  "  Suspiria  de  Profundis  "  of 
De  Quincey. 


59 


TO    OUR    LADIES    OF    DEATH 

Thus  I,  in  secret,  call,  O  Death  !  to  Thee, 
Thou  Youngest  of  the  solemn  Sisterhood, 

Thou  Gentlest  of  the  mighty  Sisters  Three 

Whom  I  have  known  so  well  since  first  endued 

By  Love  and  Grief  with  vision  to  discern 

What  spiritual  life  doth  throb  and  burn 

Through  all  our  world,  with  evil  powers  and  good. 

The  Three  whom  I  have  known  so  long,  so  well, 

By  intimate  communion,  face  to  face, 
In  every  mood,  of  Earth,  of  Heaven,  of  Hell, 

In  every  season  and  in  every  place, 
That  joy  of  Life  has  ceased  to  visit  me. 
As  one  estranged  by  powerful  witchery. 

Infatuate  in  a  Siren's  weird  embrace. 

First  Thou,  O  priestess,  phophetess,  and  queen, 

Our  Lady  of  Beatitudes,  first  Thou: 
Of  mighty  stature,  of  seraphic  mien. 

Upon  the  tablet  of  whose  broad  white  brow 
Unvanquishable  Truth  is  written  clear, 
The  secret  of  the  mystery  of  our  sphere, 

The  regnant  word  of  the  Eternal  Now. 

Thou  standest  garmented  in  purest  white  ; 

But  from  thy  shoulders  wings  of  power  half-spread 
Invest  thy  form  with  such  miraculous  light 

As  dawn  may  clothe  the  earth  with :  and,  instead 
Of  any  jewel-kindled  golden  crown, 
The  glory  of  thy  long  hair  flowing  down 

Is  dazzling  noonday  sunshine  round  thy  head. 


60 


TO   OUR    LADIES    OF    DEATH 

Upon  a  sword  thy  left  hand  resteth  calm, 

A  naked  sword,  two-edged  and  long  and  straight 

A  branch  of  olive  with  a  branch  of  palm 
Thy  right  hand  proffereth  to  hostile  Fate. 

The  shining  plumes  that  clothe  thy  feet  are  bound 

By  knotted  strings,  as  if  to  tread  the  ground 

With  weary  steps  when  thou  wouldst  soar  elate. 

Twin  heavens  uplifted  to  the  heavens,  thine  eyes 
Are  solemn  with  unutterable  thought 

And  love  and  aspiration  ;  yet  there  lies 

Within  their  light  eternal  sadness,  wrought 

By  hope  deferred  and  baffled  tenderness  : 

Of  all  the  souls  whom  thou  dost  love  and  bless, 
How  few  revere  and  love  thee  as  they  ought ! 

Thou  leadest  heroes  from  their  warfare  here 

To  nobler  fields  where  grander  crowns  are  won  ; 

Thou  leadest  sages  from  this  twilight  sphere 
To  cloudless  heavens  and  an  unsetting  sun  ; 

Thou  leadest  saints  unto  that  purer  air 

Whose  breath  is  spiritual  life  and  prayer : 

Yet,  lo !  they  seek  thee  not,  but  fear  and  shun  ! 

Thou  takest  to  thy  most  maternal  breast 

Young  children  from  the  desert  of  this  earth, 

Ere  sin  hath  stained  their  souls,  or  grief  opprest, 
And  bearest  them  unto  an  heavenly  birth, 

To  be  the  Vestals  of  God's  Fane  above  : 

And  yet  their  kindred  moan  against  thy  love, 
With  wild  and  selfish  moans  in  bitter  dearth. 


6i 


TO    OUR    LADIES    OF    DEATH 

Most  holy  Spirit,  first  Self-conqueror; 

Thou  Victress  over  Time  and  Destiny 
And  Evil,  in  the  all-deciding  war 

So  fierce,  so  long,  so  dreadful!  —  Would  that  me 
Thou  hadst  upgathered  in  my  life's  pure  morn! 
Unworthy  then,  less  worthy  now,  forlorn, 

I  dare  not,  Gracious  Mother,  call  on  Thee. 

Next  Thou,  O  sibyl,  sorceress  and  queen, 

Our  Lady  of  Annihilation,  Thou  ! 
Of  mighty  stature,  of  demoniac  mien  ; 

Upon  whose  swathy  face  and  livid  brow 
Are  graven  deeply  anguish,  malice,  scorn, 
Strength  ravaged  by  unrest,  resolve  forlorn 

Of  any  hope,  dazed  pride  that  will  not  bow. 

Thy  form  is  clothed  with  wings  of  iron  gloom ; 

But  round  about  thee,  like  a  chain,  is  rolled, 
Cramping  the  sway  of  every  mighty  plume, 

A  stark  constringent  serpent  fold  on  fold : 
Of  its  two  heads,  one  sting  is  in  thy  brain. 
The  other  in  thy  heart ;  their  venom-pain 

Like  fire  distilling  through  thee  uncontrolled. 

A  rod  of  serpents  wieldeth  thy  right  hand ; 

Thy  left  a  cup  of  raging  fire,  whose  light 
Burns  lurid  on  thyself  as  thou  dost  stand ; 

Thy  lidless  eyes  tenebriously  bright ; 
Thy  wings,  thy  vestures,  thy  dishevelled  hair 
Dark  as  the  Grave  ;  thou  statue  of  Despair, 

Thou  Night  essential  radiating  night. 


62 


TO    OUR    LADIES   OF    DEATH 

Thus  have  I  seen  thee  in  thine  actual  form ; 

Not  thus  can  see  thee  those  whom  thou  dost  sway, 
Inscrutable  Enchantress  :  young  and  warm, 

Pard- beautiful  and  brilliant,  ever  gay; 
Thy  cup  the  very  Wine  of  Life,  thy  rod 
The  wand  of  more  voluptuous  spells  than  God 

Can  wield  in  Heaven;  thus  charmest  thou  thy  prey. 

The  selfish,  fatuous,  proud,  and  pitiless. 
All  who  have  falsified  life's  royal  trust ; 

The  strong  whose  strength  hath  basked  in  idleness. 
The  great  heart  given  up  to  worldly  lust, 

The  great  mind  destitute  of  moral  faith  ; 

Thou  scourgest  down  to  Night  and  utter  Death, 
Or  penal  spheres  of  retribution  just. 

O  mighty  Spirit,  fraudful  and  malign, 

Demon  of  madness  and  perversity  ! 
The  evil  passions  which  may  make  me  thine 

Are  not  yet  irrepressible  in  me  ; 
And  I  have  pierced  thy  mark  of  riant  youth, 
And  seen  thy  form  in  all  its  hideous  truth  : 

I  will  not.  Dreadful  Mother,  call  on  Thee. 

Last  Thou,  retired  nun  and  throneless  queen, 

Our  Lady  of  Oblivion,  last  Thou : 
Of  human  stature,  of  abstracted  mien ; 

Upon  whose  pallid  face  and  drooping  brow 
Are  shadowed  melancholy  dreams  of  Doom, 
And  deep  absorption  into  silent  gloom. 

And  weary  bearing  of  the  heavy  Now. 


63 


TO   OUR    LADIES    OF    DEATH 

Thou  art  all  shrouded  in  a  gauzy  veil, 

Sombrous  and  cloudlike  ;  all,  except  that  face 

Of  subtle  loveliness  though  weirdly  pale. 

Thy  soft,  slow-gliding  footsteps  leave  no  trace, 

And  stir  no  sound.     Thy  drooping  hands  infold 

Their  frail  white  fingers  ;  and,  unconscious,  hold 
A  poppy-wreath,  thine  anodyne  of  grace. 

Thy  hair  is  like  a  twilight  round  thy  head : 

Thine  eyes  are  shadowed  wells,  from  Lethe-stream 

With  drowsy  subterranean  waters  fed  ; 
Obscurely  deep,  without  a  stir  or  gleam ; 

The  gazer  drinks  in  from  them  with  his  gaze 

An  opiate  charm  to  curtain  all  his  days, 
A  passive  languor  of  oblivious  dream. 

Thou  hauntest  twilight  regions,  and  the  trance 
Of  moonless  nights  when  stars  are  few  and  wan  : 

Within  black  woods ;  or  over  the  expanse 
Of  desert  seas  abysmal ;  or  upon 

Old  solitary  shores  whose  populous  graves 

Are  rocked  in  rest  by  ever- moaning  waves  ; 
Or  through  vast  ruined  cities  still  and  lone. 

The  weak,  the  weary,  and  the  desolate. 

The  poor,  the  mean,  the  outcast,  the  opprest, 

All  trodden  down  beneath  the  march  of  Fate, 
Thou  gatherest,  loving  Sister,  to  thy  breast, 

Soothing  their  pain  and  weariness  asleep ; 

Then  in  thy  hidden  Dreamland  hushed  and  deep 
Dost  lay  them,  shrouded  in  eternal  rest. 


64 


TO    OUR    LADIES    OF    DEATH 

O  sweetest  Sister,  and  sole  Patron  Saint 
Of  all  the  humble  eremites  who  flee 

From  out  life's  crowded  tumult,  stunned  and  faint, 
To  seek  a  stem  and  lone  tranquillity 

In  Libyan  wastes  of  time  :  my  hopeless  life 

With  famished  yearning  craveth  rest  from  strife; 
Therefore,  thou  Restful  One,  I  call  on  Thee  ! 

Take  me,  and  lull  me  into  perfect  sleep ; 

Down,  down,  far-hidden  in  thy  duskiest  cave  ; 
While  all  the  clamorous  years  above  me  sweep 

Unheard,  or,  like  the  voice  of  seas  that  rave 
On  far-off  coasts,  but  murmuring  o'er  my  trance, 
A  dim  vast  monotone,  that  shall  enhance 

The  restful  rapture  of  the  inviolate  grave. 

Upgathered  thus  in  thy  divine  embrace, 
Upon  mine  eyes  thy  soft  mesmeric  hand, 

While  wreaths  of  opiate  odour  interlace 
About  my  pulseless  brow;  babe-pure  and  bland, 

Passionless,  senseless,  thoughtless,  let  me  dream 

Some  ever-slumbrous,  never-varying  theme, 
Within  the  shadow  of  thy  Timeless  Land. 

That  when  I  thus  have  drunk  my  inmost  fill 
Of  perfect  peace,  I  may  arise  renewed ; 

In  soul  and  body,  intellect  and  will. 

Equal  to  cope  with  Life  whate'er  its  mood ; 

To  sway  its  storm  and  energise  its  calm  ; 

Through  rhythmic  years  evolving  like  a  psalm 
Of  infinite  love  and  faith  and  sanctitude. 


TO   OUR    LADIES   OF    DEATH 

But  if  this  cannot  be,  no  less  I  cry, 

Come,  lead  me  with  thy  terrorless  control 

Down  to  our  Mother's  bosom,  there  to  die 
By  abdication  of  my  separate  soul  : 

So  shall  this  single,  self- impelling  piece 

Of  mechanism  from  lone  labour  cease. 
Resolving  into  union  with  the  Whole. 

Our  Mother  feedeth  thus  our  little  life, 

That  we  in  turn  may  feed  her  with  our  death : 

The  great  Sea  sways,  one  interwoven  strife, 
Wherefrom  the  Sun  exhales  a  subtle  breath, 

To  float  the  heavens  sublime  in  form  and  hue. 

Then  turning  cold  and  dark  in  order  due 

Rain  weeping  back  to  swell  the  Sea  beneath. 

One  part  of  me  shall  feed  a  little  worm, 
And  it  a  bird  on  which  a  man  may  feed ; 

One  lime  the  mould,  one  nourish  insect-sperm  ; 
One  thrill  sweet  grass,  one  pulse  in  bitter  weed ; 

This  swell  a  fruit,  and  that  evolve  in  air ; 

Another  trickle  to  a  springlet's  lair. 
Another  paint  a  daisy  on  the  mead  : 

With  cosmic  interchange  of  parts  for  all, 
Through  all  the  modes  of  being  numberless 

Of  every  element,  as  may  befall. 

And  if  earth's  general  soul  hath  consciousness. 

Their  new  life  must  with  strange  new  joy  be  thrilled, 

Of  perfect  law  all  perfectly  fulfilled ; 
No  sin,  no  fear,  no  failure,  no  excess. 


66 


TO    OUR    LADIES    OF    DEATH 

Weary  of  living  isolated  life, 

Weary  of  hoping  hopes  for  ever  vain, 

Weary  of  struggling  in  all -sterile  strife, 

Weary  of  thought  which  maketh  nothing  plain, 

I  close  my  eyes  and  hush  my  panting  breath, 

And  yearn  for  Thee,  divinely  tranquil  Death, 
To  come  and  soothe  away  my  bitter  pain. 

1861. 


67 


INSOMNIA 

"  Sleepless  himself  to  give  to  others  sleep." 
"  He  giveth  His  beloved  sleep." 

I    HEARD  the  sounding  of  the  midnight  hour; 
The  others  one  by  one  had  left  the  room, 
In  calm  assurance  that  the  gracious  power 

Of  sleep's  fine  alchemy  would  bless  the  gloom, 
Transmuting  all  its  leaden  weight  to  gold, 
To  treasures  of  rich  virtues  manifold, 

New  strength,  new  health,  new  life ; 
Just  weary  enough  to  nestle  softly,  sweetly. 
Into  divine  unconsciousness,  completely 
Delivered  from  the  world  of  toil  and  care  and  strife. 

Just  weary  enough  to  feel  assured  of  rest. 

Of  Sleep's  divine  oblivion  and  repose, 
Renewing  heart  and  brain  for  richer  zest 

Of  waking  life  when  golden  morning  glows. 
As  young  and  pure  and  glad  as  if  the  first 
That  ever  on  the  void  of  darkness  burst 

With  ravishing  warmth  and  light ; 
On  dewy  grass  and  flowers  and  blithe  birds  singing, 
And  shining  waters,  all  enraptured  springing, 
Fragrance  and  shine  and  song,  out  of  the  womb  of  night. 

But  I  with  infinite  weariness  outworn, 

Haggard  with  endless  nights  unblessed  by  sleep. 

Ravaged  by  thoughts  unutterably  forlorn, 
Plunged  in  despairs  unfathomably  deep. 


68 


INSOMNIA 

Went  cold  and  pale  and  trembling  with  affright 
Into  the  desert  vastitude  of  Night, 

Arid  and  wild  and  black ; 
Foreboding  no  oasis  of  sweet  slumber, 
Counting  beforehand  all  the  countless  number 
Of  sands  that  are  its  minutes  on  my  desolate  track. 

And  so  I  went,  the  last,  to  my  drear  bed, 

Aghast  as  one  who  should  go  down  to  lie 
Among  the  blissfully  unconscious  dead. 

Assured  that  as  the  endless  years  flowed  by 
Over  the  dreadful  silence  and  deep  gloom 
And  dense  oppression  of  the  stifling  tomb. 

He  only  of  them  all, 
Nerveless  and  impotent  to  madness,  never 
Could  hope  oblivion's  perfect  trance  for  ever: 
An  agony  of  life  eternal  in  death's  pall. 

But  that  would  be  for  ever,  without  cure  !  — 
And  yet  the  agony  be  not  more  great ; 

Supreme  fatigue  and  pain,  while  they  endure, 
Into  Eternity  their  time  translate ; 

Be  it  of  hours  and  days  or  countless  years, 

And  boundless  aeons,  it  alike  appears 
To  the  crushed  victim's  soul ; 

Utter  despair  foresees  no  termination, 

But  feels  itself  of  infinite  duration ; 
The  smallest  fragment  instant  comprehends  the  whole. 

The  absolute  of  torture  as  of  bliss 

Is  timeless,  each  transcending  time  and  space ; 


69 


INSOMNIA 

The  one  an  infinite  obscure  abyss, 

The  other  an  eternal  Heaven  of  grace. — 
Keeping  a  little  lamp  of  glimmering  light 
Companion  through  the  horror  of  the  night, 

I  laid  me  down  aghast 
As  he  of  all  who  pass  death's  quiet  portal 
Malignantly  reserved  alone  immortal, 
In  consciousness  of  bale  that  must  for  ever  last. 

I  laid  me  down  and  closed  my  heavy  eyes, 

As  if  sleep's  mockery  might  win  true  sleep ; 
And  grew  aware,  with  awe  but  not  surprise, 

Blindly  aware  through  all  the  silence  deep, 
Of  some  dark  Presence  watching  by  my  bed, 
The  awful  image  of  a  nameless  dread  ; 

But  I  lay  still  fordone; 
And  felt  its  Shadow  on  me  dark  and  solemn 
And  steadfast  as  a  monumental  column, 
And  thought  drear  thoughts  of  Doom,  and  heard  the 
bells  chime  One. 

And  then  I  raised  my  weary  eyes  and  saw. 

By  some  slant  moonlight  on  the  ceiling  thrown 
And  faint  lamp- gleam,  that  Image  of  my  awe, 

Still  as  a  pillar  of  basaltic  stone, 
But  all  enveloped  in  a  sombre  shroud 
Except  the  wan  face  drooping  heavy-browed. 

With  sad  eyes  fixed  on  mine  ; 
Sad  weary  yearning  eyes,  but  fixed  remorseless 
Upon  my  eyes  yet  wearier,  that  were  forceless 
To  bear  the  cruel  pressure  ;  cruel,  unmalign. 


70 


INSOMNIA  ^ 

Wherefore  I  asked  for  what  I  knew  too  well : 
O  ominous  midnight  Presence,  What  art  Thou 

Whereto  in  tones  that  sounded  like  a  knell : 
"  I  am  the  Second  Hour,  appointed  now 

To  watch  beside  thy  slumberless  unrest." 

Then  I  :  Thus  both,  unlike,  alike  unblest ; 
For  I  should  sleep,  you  fly  : 

Are  not  those  wings  beneath  thy  mantle  moulded  ? 

O  Hour!  unfold  those  wings  so  straightly  folded, 
And  urge  thy  natural  flight  beneath  the  moonlit  sky. 

"  My  wings  shall  open  when  your  eyes  shall  close 
In  real  slumber  from  this  waking  drear ; 

Your  wild  unrest  is  my  enforced  repose  ; 

Ere  I  move  hence  you  must  not  know  me  here." 

Could  not  your  wings  fan  slumber  through  my  brain, 

Soothing  away  its  weariness  and  pain  ? 
"  Your  sleep  must  stir  my  wings  : 

Sleep,  and  I  bear  you  gently  on  my  pinions 

Athwart  my  span  of  hollow  night's  dominions, 
Whence  hour  on  hour  shall  bear  to  morning's  golden 


That  which  I  ask  of  you,  you  ask  of  me, 
O  weary  Hour,  thus  standing  sentinel 

Against  your  nature,  as  I  feel  and  see 
Against  my  own  your  form  immovable  : 

Could  I  bring  Sleep  to  set  you  on  the  wing, 

What  other  thing  so  gladly  would  I  bring  ? 
Truly  the  poet  saith  : 


71 


INSOMNIA 

If  that  is  best  whose  absence  we  deplore  most, 
Whose  presence  in  our  longings  is  the  foremost, 
What  blessings  equal  Sleep  save  only  love  and  death  ? 

I  let  my  lids  fall,  sick  of  thought  and  sense, 
But  felt  that  Shadow  heavy  on  my  heart; 
And  saw  the  night  before  me  an  immense 

Black  waste  of  ridge-walls,  hour  by  hour  apart, 
Dividing  deep  ravines :  from  ridge  to  ridge 
Sleep's  flying  hour  was  an  aerial  bridge  ; 

But  I,  whose  hours  stood  fast, 
Must  climb  down  painfully  each  steep  side  hither. 
And  climb  more  painfully  each  steep  side  thither, 
And  so  make  one  hour's  span  for  years  of  travail  last. 

Thus  I  went  down  into  that  first  ravine. 

Wearily,  slowly,  blindly,  and  alone. 
Staggering,  stumbling,  sinking  depths  unseen. 

Shaken  and  bruised  and  gashed  by  stub  and  stone  ; 
And  at  the  bottom  paven  with  slipperiness, 
A  torrent-brook  rushed  headlong  with  such  stress 

Against  my  feeble  limbs. 
Such  fury  of  wave  and  foam  and  icy  bleakness 
Buffeting  insupportably  my  weakness 
That  when   I  would  recall  dazed  memory  swirls  and 
swims. 

How  I  got  through  I  know  not,  faint  as  death  ; 

And  then  I  had  to  climb  the  awful  scarp. 
Creeping  with  many  a  pause  for  panting  breath, 

Clinging  to  tangled  root  and  rock  jut  sharp  ; 


72 


INSOMNIA 

Perspiring  with  faint  chills  instead  of  heat, 
Trembling,  and  bleeding  hands  and  knees  and  feet ; 

Falling,  to  rise  anew; 
Until,  with  lamentable  toil  and  travel 
Upon  the  ridge  of  arid  sand  and  gravel 
I  lay  supine  half -dead  and  heard  the  bells  chime  Two; 

And  knew  a  change  of  Watchers  in  the  room 

Without  a  stir  or  sound  beside  my  bed  ; 
Only  the  tingling  silence  of  the  gloom, 

The  muffled  pulsing  of  the  night's  deep  dread; 
And  felt  an  image  mightier  to  appal. 
And  looked;  the  moonlight  on  the  bed-foot  wall 

And  corniced  ceiling  white 
Was  slanting  now  ;  and  in  the  midst  stood  solemn 
And  hopeless  as  a  black  sepulchral  column 
A  steadfast  shrouded  Form,  the  Third  Hour  of  the 
night. 

The  fixed  regard  implacably  austere, 

Yet  none  the  less  ineffably  forlorn. 
Something  transcending  all  my  former  fear 

Came  jarring   through   my   shattered  frame  out- 
worn : 
I  knew  that  crushing  rock  could  not  be  stirred  ; 
I  had  no  heart  to  say  a  single  word. 

But  closed  my  eyes  again : 
And  set  me  shuddering  to  the  task  stupendous 
Of  climbing  down  and  up  that  gulf  tremendous 
Unto  the  next  hour-ridge  beyond  Hope's  farthest  ken. 


73 


INSOMNIA 

Men  sigh  and  plain  and  wail  how  life  is  brief : 

Ah  yes,  our  bright  eternities  of  bliss 
Are  transient,  rare,  minute  beyond  relief, 

Mere  star-dust  meteors  in  Time's  night-abyss  ; 
Ah  no,  our  black  eternities  intense 
Of  bale  are  lasting,  dominant,  immense, 

As  time  which  is  their  breath  ; 
The  memory  of  the  bliss  is  yearning  sorrow. 
The  memory  of  the  bale  clouds  every  morrow 
Darkening  through  nights  and  days  unto  the  night  of 
Death. 

No  human  words  could  paint  my  travail  sore 

In  the  thick  darkness  of  the  next  ravine, 
Deeper  immeasurably  than  that  before  : 

When  hideous  agonies,  unheard,  unseen. 
In  overwhelming  floods  of  torture  roll. 
And  horrors  of  great  darkness  drown  the  soul. 

To  be  is  not  to  be 
In  memory  save  as  ghastliest  impression. 

And  chaos  of  demoniacal  possession 

I  shuddered  on  the  ridge,  and  heard  the  bells  chime 
Three. 

And  like  a  pillar  of  essential  gloom. 

Most  terrible  in  stature  and  regard, 
Black  in  the  moonlight  filling  all  the  room 

The  image  of  the  Fourth  Hour,  evil-starred, 
Stood  over  me;  but  there  was  Something  more, 
Something  behind  It  undiscerned  before, 


74 


INSOMNIA 

More  dreadful  than  Its  dread, 
Which  overshadowed  it  as  with  a  fateful 
Inexorable  fascination  hateful, — 
A  wan  and  formless  Shade  from  regions  of  the  dead. 

I  shut  my  eyes  against  that  spectral  Shade, 

Which  yet  allured  me  with  a  deadly  charm  ; 
And  that  black  Image  of  the  Hour,  dismayed 

By  such  tremendous  menacing  of  harm ; 
And  so  into  the  gulf  as  into  Hell ; 
Where  what  immeasurable  depths  I  fell, 

With  seizures  of  the  heart 
Whose  each  clutch  seemed  the  end  of  all  pulsation, 
And  tremors  of  exanimate  prostration, 
Are  horrors  in  my  soul  that  never  can  depart. 

If  I  for  hope  or  wish  had  any  force, 

It  was  that  I  might  rush  down  sharply  hurled 
From  rock  to  rock  until  a  mangled  corse 

Down  with  the  fury  of  the  torrent  whirled. 
The  fury  of  black  waters  and  white  foam, 
To  where  the  homeless  find  their  only  home. 

In  the  immense  void  Sea, 
Whose  isles  are  worlds,  surrounding,  unsurrounded, 
Whose  depths  no  mortal  plummet  ever  sounded, 
Beneath  all  surface  storm  calm  in  Eternity. 

Such  hope  or  wish  was  as  a  feeble  spark, 
A  little  lamp's  pale  glimmer  in  a  tomb. 

To  just  reveal  the  hopeless  deadly  dark 

And  wordless  horrors  of  my  soul's  fixed  doom : 


75 


INSOMNIA 

Yet  some  mysterious  instinct  obstinate, 
Blindly  unconscious  as  a  law  of  P'ate, 

Still  urged  me  on  and  bore 
My  shattered  being  through  the  unfeared  peril 
Of  death  less  hateful  than  the  life  as  sterile  ! 
I  shuddered  on  the  ridge,  and  heard  the  bells  chime 

Four. 

The  Image  of  that  Fifth  Hour  of  the  night 
Was  blacker  in  the  moonlight  now  aslant 
Upon  its  left  than  on  its  shrouded  right ! 

And  over  and  behind  it,  dominant, 
The  shadow  not  Its  shadow  cast  its  spell. 
Most  vague  and  dim  and  wan  and  terrible, 

Death's  ghastly  aureole, 
Pregnant  with  overpowering  fascination, 
Commanding  by  repulsive  instigation, 
Despair's  envenomed  anodyne  to  tempt  the  Soul. 

I  closed  my  eyes,  but  could  no  longer  keep 
Under  that  Image  and  most  awful  Shade, 
Supine  in  mockery  of  blissful  sleep, 

Delirious  with  such  fierce  thirst  unallayed : 
Of  all  worst  agonies  the  most  unblest 
Is  passive  agony  of  wild  unrest : 
Trembling  and  faint  I  rose. 
And  dressed  with  painful  efforts,  and  descended 
With  furtive  footsteps  and  with  breath  suspended. 
And  left  the  slumbering  house  with  my  unslumbering 
woes. 


76 


INSOMNIA 

Constrained  to  move  through  the  unmoving  hours, 
Accurst  from  rest  because  the  hours  stood  still ; 

Feeling  the  hands  of  the  Infernal  Powers 
Heavy  upon  me  for  enormous  ill, 

Inscrutable  intolerable  pain, 

Against  which  mortal  pleas  and  prayers  are  vain, 
Gaspings  of  dying  breath. 

And  human  struggles,  dying  spasms  yet  vainer: 

Renounce  defence  when  Doom  is  the  Arraigner; 
Let  impotence  of  Life  subside  appeased  in  Death. 

I  paced  the  silent  and  deserted  streets 

In  cold  dark  shade  and  chillier  moonlight  grey  ; 
Pondering  a  dolorous  series  of  defeats 

And  black  disasters  from  life's  opening  day, 
Invested  with  the  shadow  of  a  doom 
That  filled  the  Spring  and  Summer  with  a  gloom 

Most  wintry  bleak  and  drear ; 
Gloom  from  within  as  from  a  sulphurous  censer 
Making  the  glooms  without  for  ever  denser, 
To  blight  the  buds  and  flowers  and  fruitage  of  my  year. 

Against  a  bridge's  stony  parapet 

I  leaned,  and  gazed  into  the  waters  black  ; 

And  marked  an  angry  morning  red  and  wet 
Beneath  a  livid  and  enormous  rack 

Glare  out  confronting  the  belated  moon. 

Huddled  and  wan  and  feeble  as  the  swoon 
Of  featureless  Despair  : 


n 


INSOMNIA 

When  some  stray  workman,  half-asleep  but  lusty, 
Passed  urgent  through  the  rainpour  wild  and  gusty, 
I  felt  a  ghost  already,  planted  watching  there. 

As  phantom  to  its  grave,  or  to  its  den 

Some  wild  beast  of  the  night  when  night  is  sped, 
I  turned  unto  my  homeless  home  again 

To  front  a  day  only  less  charged  with  dread 
Than  that  dread  night ;  and  after  day,  to  front 
Another  night  of  —  what  would  be  the  brunt  ? 

I  put  the  thought  aside, 
To  be  resumed  when  common  life  unfolded 
In  common  daylight  had  my  brain  remoulded; 
Meanwhile  the  flaws  of  rain  refreshed  and  fortified. 

The  day  passed,  and  the  night ;  and  other  days. 
And  other  nights  ;  and  all  of  evil  doom  ; 

The  sun-hours  in  a  sick  bewildering  haze. 
The  star-hours  in  a  thick  enormous  gloom, 

With  rending  lightnings  and  with  thunder-knells  ; 

The  ghastly  hours  of  all  the  timeless  Hells  :  — 
Bury  them  with  their  bane  ! 

I  look  back  on  the  words  already  written. 

And  writhe  by  cold  rage  stung,  by  self -scorn  smitten, 
They  are  so  weak  and  vain  and  infinitely  inane.  .  .  . 

"How  from  those  hideous  Malebolges  deep 

I  ever  could  win  back  to  upper  earth. 
Restored  to  human  nights  of  blessed  sleep 

And  healthy  waking  with  the  new  day's  birth  ?  "  — 


78 


INSOMNIA 

How  do  men  climb  back  from  a  swoon  whose  stress, 
Crushing  far  deeper  than  all  consciousness, 

Is  deep  as  deep  death  seems  ? 
Who  can  the  steps  and  stages  mete  and  number 
By  which  we  re-emerge  from  nightly  slumber?  — 
Our  poor  vast  petty  life  is  one  dark  maze  of  dreams. 

March  1882. 


79 


HE  HEARD  HER  SING 


WE  were  now  in  the  midmost  Maytime,  in  the  full 
green  flood  of  the  Spring, 
When   the   air  is   sweet   all    the    daytime    with    the 

blossoms  and  birds  that  sing  ; 
When  the  air  is  rich  all  the  night,  and  richest  of  all  in 

its  noon 
When   the    nightingales   pant    the    delight    and    keen 

stress  of  their  love  to  the  moon  ; 
When  the  almond  and  apple  and  pear  spread  wavering 

wavelets  of  snow 
In  the   light   of  the  soft  warm  air  far-flushed  with  a 

delicate  glow ; 
When  the  towering  chestnuts  uphold  their  masses  of 

spires  red  or  white, 
And  the  pendulous  tresses  of  gold  of  the  slim  labur- 
num burn  bright, 
And  the  lilac  guardeth  the  bowers  with  the  gleam  of 

a  lifted  spear, 
And  the  scent  of  the  hawthorn  flowers  breathes  all  the 

new  life  of  the  year. 
And  the  linden's  tender  pink  bud  by  the  green  of  the 

leaf  is  o'errun. 
And  the  bronze-beech  shines   like  blood  in  the  light 

of  the  morning  sun. 
And   the   leaf-buds  seem  spangling  some  network  of 

gossamer  flung  on  the  elm, 


80 


HE    HEARD   HER    SING 

And  the  hedges  are  filling  their  fretwork  with  every 

sweet  green  of  Spring's  realm  ; 
And  the  flowers  are  everywhere  budding  and  blowing 

about  our  feet, 
The   green   of  the   meadows   star-studding    and    the 

bright  green  blades  of  the  wheat. 


An  evening  and  night  of  song.  For  first  when  I  left 
the  town, 

And  took  the  lane  that  is  long  and  came  out  on  the 
breeze-swept  down, 

The  sunset  heavens  were  all  ringing  wide  over  the 
golden  gorse 

With  the  skylarks'  rapturous  singing,  a  revel  of  larks 
in  full  force, 

A  revel  of  larks  in  the  raptures  surpassing  all  rap- 
tures of  Man, 

Who  ponders  the  blessings  he  captures  and  finds  in 
each  blessing  some  ban. 

And  then  I  went  on  down  the  dale  in  the  light  of 
the  afterglow, 

In  that  strange  light  green  and  pale  and  serene  and 
pathetic  and  slow 

In  its  fading  round  to  the  north,  while  the  light  of 
the  unseen  moon 

From  the  east  comes  brightening  forth  an  ever- 
increasing  boon. 

And  there  in  the  cottage  my  Alice,  through  the 
hours  so  short  and  so  long. 


8i 


HE   HEARD    HER   SING 

Kept   filled  to  the  brim  love's  chalice  with  the  wine 

of  music  and  song  : 
And  first  with  colossal  Beethoven,  the  gentlest  spirit 

sublime 
Of  the    harmonies   interwoven,    Eternity  woven    with 

Time; 
Of   the   melodies   slowly   and  slowly  dissolving  away 

through  the  soul, 
While  it  dissolves  with  them  wholly  and  our  being  is 

lost  in  the  Whole  ; 
As   gentle   as   Dante    the  Poet,  for  only  the  lulls  of 

the  stress 
Of   the   mightiest   spirits   can   know  it,  this  ineffable 

gentleness  : 
And  then  with  the  delicate  tender  fantastic  dreamer 

of  night. 
Whose  splendour  is  starlike  splendour  and  his  light 

a  mystic  moonlight, 
Nocturn  on   nocturn  dreaming  while  the  mind  floats 

far  in  the  haze 
And   the   dusk  and  the   shadow   and  gleaming   of  a 

realm  that  has  no  days  : 
And  then  she  sang  ballads  olden,  ballads  of  love  and 

of  w^oe, 
Love  all  burningly  golden,  grief  with  heart's-blood  in 

its  flow  ; 
Those  ballads  of  Scotland  that  thrill  you,  keen  from 

the  heart  to  the  heart. 
Till   their  pathos   is    seeming    to   kill    you,    with    an 

exquisite  bliss  in  the  smart. 


82 


HE    HEARD   HER   SING 

And  then  we  went  out  of  the  valley  and  over  the  spur 

of  the  hill, 
And  down  by  a  woodland  alley  where  the  sprinkled 

moonlight  lay  still ; 
For  the  breeze  in  the  boughs  was  still  and  the  breeze 

was  still  in  the  sprays, 
And  the  leaves  had  scarcely  a  thrill  in  the  stream  of 

the  silver  rays, 
But  looked  as  if  drawn  on  the  sky  or  etched  with  a 

graver  keen. 
Sharp  shadows  thrown  from  on  high  deep  out  of  the 

azure  serene : 
And  a  certain  copse  we  knew,  where  never  in  May- 
time  fails, 
While  the  night  distils  sweet  dew,  the  song  of  the 

nightingales  : 
And   there   together  we   heard  the   lyrical  drama  of 

love 
Of  the  wonderful  passionate  bird  which  swelleth  the 

heart  so  above 
All  other  thought  of  this  life,  all  other  care  of   this 

earth. 
Be  it  of  pleasure  or  strife,  be  it  of  sorrow  or  mirth. 
Saving  the  one  intense  imperious  passion  supreme 
Kindling  the  soul  and  the  sense,  making  the  world 

but  a  dream, 
The  dream  of  an  aching  delight  and  a  yearning  afar 

and  afar, 
While   the   music  thrills   all   the   void   night   to    the 

loftiest  pulsating  star  :  — 


83 


HE    HEARD    HER    SING 

"  Love,  love  only,  for  ever ;  love  with  its  torture  and 

bliss ; 
All  the  world's  glories  can  never  equal  two  souls  in 

one  kiss." 


And  when  I  had  bidden  farewell  to  my  Love  at  the 

cottage  door, 
For  a  night  and  a  day  farewell,  for  a  night  and  a  day 

and  no  more, 
I  went  down  to  the  shining  strand  of  our  own  beloved 

bay, 
To  the  shore  of  soft  white  sand  caressed  by  the  pure 

white  spray, 
In  the  arms  of  the  hills  serene,  clothed  from  the  base 

to  the  crest 
With  garments  of  manifold  green,  curving  to  east  and 

to  west ; 
And  high  in   the  pale  blue  south  where  the  clouds 

were  white  as  wool, 
Over  the  little  bay-mouth  the  moon  shone  near  the 

full; 
And  I  walked  by  the  waves'  soft  moan,  for  my  heart 

was  beyond  control, 
And  I  needed  to  be  alone  with  the  night  and  my  love 

and  my  soul. 
And  I  could  not  think  of  sleep  in  the  moonlight  broad 

and  clear, 
P'or  a  music  solemn  and  deep    filled   all    my    spirit's 

sphere, 


84 


HE   HEARD   HER   SING 

A  music  interwoven  of  all  that  night  I  had  heard, 
From  the  music  of  mighty  Beethoven  to  the  song  of 
the  little  brown  bird. 

And  thus  as  I  paced  the  shore  beneath  the  azure  abyss, 
And  my  soul  thrilled  more  and  more  with  a  yearning 

and  sadness  of  bliss, 
A  voice  came  over  the  water  from  over  the  eastern  cape, 
Like   the   voice   of   some   ocean   daughter   wailing   a 

lover's  escape,  — 
A  voice  so  plaintive  and  distant,  as  faint  as  a  wounded 

dove, 
Whose  wings  are  scarcely  resistant  to  the  air  beneath 

and  above, 
Wavering,   panting,  urging  from  the  farthest  east  to 

the  west. 
Over  some  wild  sea  surging  in  the  hope  forlorn  of  its 

nest; 
A  voice  that  quivered  and  trembled,  with  falls  of   a 

broken  heart, 
And  then  like  that  dove  reassembled  its  forces  to  play 

out  its  part ; 
Till  it  came  to  a  fall  that  was  dying,  the  end  of  an 

infinite  grief, 
A  sobbing  and  throbbing  and  sighing  that  death  was 

a  welcome  relief 
And  so  there  was  silence  once  more,  and  the  moon- 
light looked  sad  as  a  pall, 
And   I   stood  entranced  on  the  shore  and  marvelled 

what  next  would  befall. 


85 


HE    HEARD   HER   SING 

And  thus  all-expectant  abiding  I  waited  not  long,  for 

soon 
A  boat  came  gliding  and  gliding  out  in  the  light  of 

the  moon, 
Gliding  with  muffled  oars,  slowly,  a  thin  dark  line, 
Round  from  the  shadowing  shores  into  the  silver  shine 
Of  the  clear  moon  w^estering  now,  and  still  drew  on 

and  on, 
While  the  water  before  its  prow  breaking  and  glistering 

shone, 
Slowly  in  silence  strange  ;  and  the  rower  rowed  till  it 

lay 
Afloat  within  easy  range  deep  in  the  curve  of  the  bay  ; 
And  besides  the  rower  were  two  ;  a  Woman,  who  sat 

in  the  stern. 
And  Her  by  her  fame  I  knew,  one  of  those  fames  that 

burn. 
Startling  and  kindling  the  world,  one  whose  likeness 

we  everywhere  see ; 
And  a  man  reclining  half-curled  with  an  indolent  grace 

at  her  knee. 
The  Signor,  lord  of  her  choice  ;  and  he  lightly  touched 

a  guitar ;  — 
A  guitar   for   that  glorious  voice  !     Illumine  the  sun 

with  a  star  ! 
She  sat  superb  and  erect,  stately,  all-happy,  serene. 
Her  right  hand  toying  unchecked  with  the  hair  of  that 

page  of  a  Queen  ; 
With  her  head  and  her  throat  and  her  bust  like  the 

bust  and  the  throat  and  the  head 


86 


HE    HEARD    HER   SING 

Of   Her   who  has  long  been  dust,  of   her    who    shall 

never  be  dead, 
Preserved  by  the  potent  art  made  trebly  potent  by  love, 
While    the    transient    ages    depart    from    under   the 

heavens  above,  — 
Preserved  in  the  colour  and  line  on  the  canvas  fulgently 

flung 
By  Him  the  Artist  divine  who  triumphed  and  vanished 

so  young  : 
Surely  there  rarely  hath  been  a  lot  more  to  be  envied 

in  life 
Than  thy  lot,  O  Fornarina,  whom  Raphael's  heart 

took  to  wife. 

There   was   silence   yet   for  a  time  save  the  tinkling 

capricious  and  quaint. 
Then  She  lifted  her  voice  sublime,  no  longer  tender 

and  faint, 
Pathetic  and  tremulous,  no  !  but  firm  as  a  column  it  rose, 
Rising  solemn  and  slow  with  a  full  rich  swell  to  the 

close. 
Firm  as  a  marble  column  soaring  with  noble  pride 
In  a  triumph  of  rapture  solemn  to  some  Hero  deified ; 
In   a   rapture   of   exultation  made  calm  by  its  stress 

intense, 
In  a  triumph  of  consecration  and  a  jubilation  immense. 
And  the  Voice  flowed  on  and  on,  and  ever  it  swelled 

as  it  poured. 
Till   the   stars   that   throbbed   as  they  shone  seemed 

throbbing  with  it  in  accord  ; 


87 


HE    HEARD    HER    SING 

Till  the  moon  herself  in  my  dream,  still  Empress  of 

all  the  night, 
Was    only   that    voice   supreme    translated   into   pure 

light  : 
And  I  lost  all  sense  of  the  earth  though  I  still  had 

sense  of  the  sea  ; 
And    I  saw    the    stupendous   girth  of  a  tree  like  the 

Norse  World-Tree ; 
And  its  branches  filled  all  the  sky,  and  the  deep  sea 

watered  its  root, 
And  the  clouds  were  its  leaves  on  high  and  the  stars 

were  its  silver  fruit ; 
Yet  the  stars  were  the  notes  of  the  singing  and  the 

moon  was  the  voice  of  the  song, 
Through  the  vault  of  the  firmament  ringing  and  swell- 
ing resistlessly  strong ; 
And  the  whole  vast  night  was  a  shell  for  that  music 

of  manifold  might, 
And   was   strained  by  the  stress  of  the  swell  of  the 

music  yet  vaster  than  night. 
And  I   saw  as  a  crystal  fountain  whose  shaft  was  a 

column  of  light 
More  high  than  the  loftiest  mountain  ascend  the  abyss 

of  the  night ; 
And  its  spray  filled  all  the  sky,  and  the  clouds  were 

the  clouds  of  its  spray, 
Which  glittered  in  star-points  on  high  and  filled  with 

pure  silver  the  bay  ; 
And  ever  in  rising  and  falling  it  sang  as  it  rose  and  it 

fell. 


88 


HE    HEARD    HER    SING 

And    the   heavens   with   their   pure   azure  walling  all 

pulsed  with  the  pulse  of  its  swell, 
For  the  stars  were  the   notes  of  the  singing  and  the 

moon  was  the  voice  of  the  song 
Through  the  vault  of  the  firmament  ringing  and  swell- 
ing ineffably  strong ! 
And  the  whole  vast  night  was  a  shell  for  that  music  of 

manifold  might, 
And  was  strained  by  the  stress   of  the  swell  of  the 

music  yet  vaster  than  night : 
And  the  fountain   in  swelling  and  soaring  and  filling 

beneath  and  above. 
Grew  flushed  with  red  fire  in  outpouring,  transmuting 

great  power  into  love, 
Great  power  with  a  greater  love  flushing,  immense  and 

intense  and  supreme. 
As  if  all  the   World's   heart-blood  outgushing  ensan- 
guined the  trance  of  my  dream ; 
And  the  waves  of  its  blood  seemed  to  dash  on  the 

shore  of  the  sky  to  the  cope 
With  the  stress  of  the  fire  of  a  passion  and  yearning  of 

limitless  scope. 
Vast  fire  of  a  passion  and  yearning,  keen  torture  of 

rapture  intense, 
A  most  unendurable  burning  consuming  the  soul  with 

the  sense :  — 
"Love,  love  only,  for  ever;  love  with  its  torture  of 

bliss ; 
All  the  world's  glories  can  never  equal  two  souls  in 

one  kiss  : 


89 


HE   HEARD   HER    SING 

Love,  and  ever  love  wholly;  love  in  all  time  and  all 
space ; 

Life  is  consummate  then  solely  in  the  death  of  a  burn- 
ing embrace."  i 


And  at  length  when  that  Voice  sank  mute,  and  silence 

fell  over  all 
Save  the  tinkling  thin  of  that  lute,  the  deep  heavens 

rushed  down  like  a  pall, 
The   stars   and   the   moon  for  a  time  with  all  their 

splendours  of  light, 
Were  quenched  wuth  that  Voice  sublime,  and  great 

darkness  filled  the  night     .... 
"When  I  felt  again  the  scent  of  the  night-flowers  rich  and 

sweet, 
As  ere  my  senses  went,  and  knew  where  I  stood  on  my 

feet. 
And  saw  the  yet-bright  bay  and  the  moon  gone  low  in 

my  dream, 
The   boat   had   passed   away    with    Her    the    Singer 

supreme ; 
She  was  gone,  the  marvellous  Singer  whose  wonder- 
ful world-wide  fame 
Could  never  possibly  bring   her  a  tithe  of  her  just 

acclaim. 
And  I  wandered  all  night  in  a  trance  of  rapture  and 

yearning  and  love. 
And  saw   the  dim   grey  expanse   flush  far  with  the 

dawning  above ; 


90 


HE    HEARD    HER    SING 

And  I  passed  that  copse  in  the  night,  but  the  nightin- 
gales all  were  dumb 
From   their  passionate    aching   delight,  and    perhaps 

whoever  should  come 
On  the  morrow  would  find,  I  have  read,  under  its  bush 

or  its  tree 
Some  poor  little  brown  bird  dead,  dead  of  its  melody. 
Slain  by  the  agitation,  by  the   stress   and  the  strain  of 

the  strife, 
And  the  pang  of  the  vain  emulation  in  the  music  yet 

dearer  than  life. 
And  I  heard  the  skylarks  singing  high  in  the  morning 

sun, 
All  the  sunrise  heavens  ringing  as  the  sunset  heavens 

had  done : 
And  ever   I    dreamed  and  pondered   while  over  the 

fragrant  soil. 
My  happy  footsteps  wandered  before  I  resumed  my 

toil :  — 
Truly,   my   darling,   my   Alice,  truly  the  whole   night 

long 
Have  I  filled  to  the  brim  love's  chalice  with  the  wine 

of  music  and  song, 
I  have  passed  and  repassed  your  door  from  the  sing- 
ing until  the  dawn 
A  dozen  times  and  more,  and  ever  the  curtains  drawn ; 
And  now  that  the  mom  is  breaking  out  of  the  stillness 

deep. 
Sweet  as  my  visions  of  waking  be  all  your  visions  of 

sleep ! 


91 


HE   HEARD    HER    SING 

Could  you  but   wake,  O  my   dearest,  a  moment,  and 

give  one  glance, 
Just   a   furtive   peep    the    merest,  to    learn   the   day's 

advance  1 
For  I  must  away  up  the  dale  and  over  the  hill  to  my 

toil, 
And  the  night's  rich  dreams  grow  pale  in  the  working 

day's  turmoil ; 
But  to-night,  O  my  darling,  my  Alice,  till  night  it  will 

not  be  long. 
We  will  fill  to  the  brim  love's  chalice  with  the  wine  of 

music  and  song ; 
And  never  the  memory  fails  of  what  I  have  learnt  in 

my  dream 
From  the  song  of  the  nightingales  and  the  song  of  the 

Singer  supreme  :  — 
"  Love,  love  only,  for  ever  ;  love  with  its  torture  and 

bliss ; 
All  the  world's  glories  can  never  equal  two  souls  in  one 

kiss  : 
Love,  love  ever  and  wholly ;  love  in  all  time  and  all 

space ; 
Love  is  consummate  then  solely  in  the  death  of  a  burn- 
ing embrace." 

February  1882. 


92 


IN  THE  ROOM 


"Ceste  insignc  fable  et  tragicque  comedie." 

Rabelais. 


THE  sun  was  down,  and  twilight  grey 
Filled  half  the  air ;  but  in  the  room, 
Whose  curtain  had  been  drawn  all  day. 

The  twilight  was  a  dusky  gloom  : 
Which  seemed  at  first  as  still  as  death, 

And  void  ;  but  was  indeed  all  rife 
With  subtle  thrills,  the  pulse  and  breath 
Of  multitudinous  lower  life. 


In  their  abrupt  and  headlong  way 

Bewildered  flies  for  light  had  dashed 
Against  the  curtain  all  the  day, 

And  now  slept  wintrily  abashed  ; 
And  nimble  mice  slept,  wearied  out 

With  such  a  double  night's  uproar  ; 
But  solid  beetles  crawled  about 

The  chilly  hearth  and  naked  floor. 


And  so  throughout  the  twilight  hour 
That  vaguely  murmurous  hush  and  rest 

There  brooded  ;  and  beneath  its  power 
Life  throbbing  held  its  throbs  supprest : 


93 


IN    THE    ROOM 


Until  the  thin-voiced  mirror  sighed, 
I  am  all  blurred  with  dust  and  damp, 

So  long  ago  the  clear  day  died, 

So  long  has  gleamed  nor  fire  nor  lamp. 


Whereon  the  curtain  murmured  back, 

Some  change  is  on  us,  good  or  ill ; 
Behind  me  and  before  is  black 

As  when  those  human  things  lie  still  : 
But  I  have  seen  the  darkness  grow 

As  grows  the  daylight  every  morn  ; 
Have  felt  out  there  long  shine  and  glow, 

In  here  long  chilly  dusk  forlorn. 


The  cupboard  grumbled  with  a  groan, 

Each  new  day  worse  starvation  brings  : 
Since  he  came  here  I  have  not  known 

Or  sweets  or  cates  or  wholesome  things 
But  now  !  a  pinch  of  meal,  a  crust, 

Throughout  the  week  is  all  I  get. 
I  am  so  empty  ;  it  is  just 

As  when  they  said  we  were  to  let. 


What  is  become,  then,  of  our  Man  .=* 
The  petulant  old  glass  exclaimed  ; 

If  all  this  time  he  slumber  can. 
He  really  ought  to  be  ashamed. 


94 


IN    THE    ROOM 


I  wish  we  had  our  Girl  again, 

So  gay  and  busy,  bright  and  fair  : 

The  girls  are  better  than  these  men, 
Who  only  for  their  dull  selves  care. 


It  is  so  many  hours  ago  — 

The  lamp  and  fire  were  both  alight  — 
I  saw  him  pacing  to  and  fro. 

Perturbing  restlessly  the  night. 
His  face  was  pale  to  give  one  fear, 

His  eyes  when  lifted  looked  too  bright ; 
He  muttered  ;  what,  I  could  not  hear  : 

Bad  words  though  ;  something  was  not  right. 

VIII 

The  table  said,  He  wrote  so  long 

That  I  grew  weary  of  his  weight ; 
The  pen  kept  up  a  cricket  song. 

It  ran  and  ran  at  such  a  rate  : 
And  in  the  longer  pauses  he 

With  both  his  folded  arms  downpressed. 
And  stared  as  one  who  does  not  see. 

Or  sank  his  head  upon  his  breast. 


The  fire-grate  said,  I  am  as  cold 
As  if  I  never  had  a  blaze  ; 

The  few  dead  cinders  here  I  hold, 
I  held  unburned  for  days  and  days. 


95 


IN    THE    ROOM 


Last  night  he  made  them  flare ;  but  still 
What  good  did  all  his  writing  do  ? 

Among  my  ashes  curl  and  thrill 
Thin  ghosts  of  all  those  papers  too. 


The  table  answered,  Not  quite  all  ; 

He  saved  and  folded  up  one  sheet, 
And  sealed  it  fast,  and  let  it  fall ; 

And  here  it  lies  now  white  and  neat. 
Whereon  the  letter's  whisper  came, 

My  writing  is  closed  up  too  well ; 
Outside  there's  not  a  single  name. 

And  who  should  read  me  I  can't  tell. 


The  mirror  sneered  with  scornful  spite, 

(That  ancient  crack  which  spoiled  her  looks 
Had  marred  her  temper),  Write  and  write  ! 

And  read  those  stupid,  worn-out  books  ! 
That's  all  he  does,  read,  write,  and  read. 

And  smoke  that  nasty  pipe  which  stinks  : 
He  never  takes  the  slightest  heed 

How  any  of  us  feels  or  thinks. 


But  Lucy  fifty  times  a  day 

Would  come  and  smile  here  in  my  face, 
Adjust  a  tress  that  curled  astray, 

Or  tie  a  ribbon  with  more  grace : 


96 


IN    THE    ROOM 


She  looked  so  young  and  fresh  and  fair, 
She  blushed  with  such  a  charming  bloom, 

It  did  one  good  to  see  her  there, 

And  brightened  all  things  in  the  room. 

XIII 

She  did  not  sit  hours  stark  and  dumb 

As  pale  as  moonshine  by  the  lamp  ; 
To  lie  in  bed  when  day  was  come, 

And  leave  us  curtained  chill  and  damp. 
She  slept  away  the  dreary  dark, 

And  rose  to  greet  the  pleasant  morn  ; 
And  sang  as  gaily  as  a  lark 

While  busy  as  the  flies  sun-born. 

XIV 

And  how  she  loved  us  every  one  ; 

And  dusted  this  and  mended  that. 
With  trills  and  laughs  and  freaks  of  fun. 

And  tender  scoldings  in  her  chat ! 
And  then  her  bird,  that  sang  as  shrill 

As  she  sang  sweet ;  her  darling  flowers 
That  grew  there  in  the  window-sill. 

Where  she  would  sit  at  work  for  hours. 

XV 

It  was  not  much  she  ever  wrote  ; 

Her  fingers  had  good  work  to  do  ; 
Say,  once  a  week  a  pretty  note  ; 

And  very  long  it  took  her  too. 


97 


IN    THE    ROOM 

And  little  more  she  read,  I  wis  ; 

Just  now  and  then  a  pictured  sheet, 
Besides  those  letters  she  would  kiss 

And  croon  for  hours,  they  were  so  sweet. 

XVI 

She  had  her  friends  too,  blithe  young  girls, 

Who  whispered,  babbled,  laughed,  caressed. 
And  romped  and  danced  with  dancing  curls. 

And  gave  our  life  a  joyous  zest. 
But  with  this  dullard,  glum  and  sour, 

Not  one  of  all  his  fellow -men 
Has  ever  passed  a  social  hour  ; 

We  might  be  in  some  wild  beast's  den. 

XVII 

This  long  tirade  aroused  the  bed. 

Who  spoke  in  deep  and  ponderous  bass. 
Befitting  that  calm  life  he  led. 

As  if  firm -rooted  in  his  place : 
In  broad  majestic  bulk  alone, 

As  in  thrice  venerable  age, 
He  stood  at  once  the  royal  throne, 

The  monarch,  the  experienced  sage  : 

XVIII 

I  know  what  is  and  what  has  been  ; 

Not  anything  to  me  comes  strange, 
Who  in  so  many  years  have  seen 

And  lived  through  every  kind  of  change. 


98 


IN    THE    ROOM 


I  know  when  men  are  good  or  bad, 
When  well  or  ill,  he  slowly  said  ; 

When  sad  or  glad,  when  sane  or  mad, 
And  when  they  sleep  alive  or  dead. 

XIX 

At  this  last  word  of  solemn  lore 

A  tremor  circled  through  the  gloom, 
As  if  a  crash  upon  the  floor 

Had  jarred  and  shaken  all  the  room : 
For  nearly  all  the  listening  things 

Were  old  and  worn,  and  knew  what  curse 
Of  violent  change  death  often  brings, 

From  good  to  bad,  from  bad  to  worse ; 

XX 

They  get  to  know  each  other  well, 

To  feel  at  home  and  settled  down  ; 
Death  bursts  among  them  like  a  shell. 

And  strews  them  over  all  the  town. 
The  bed  went  on.  This  man  who  lies 

Upon  me  now  is  stark  and  cold ; 
He  will  not  any  more  arise. 

And  do  the  things  he  did  of  old. 

XXI 

But  we  shall  have  short  peace  or  rest ; 

For  soon  up  here  will  come  a  rout, 
And  nail  him  in  a  queer  long  chest, 

And  carry  him  like  luggage  out. 


99 


IN    THE    ROOM 

They  will  be  muffled  all  in  black, 

And  whisper  much,  and  sigh  and  weep  : 

But  he  will  never  more  come  back, 
And  some  one  else  in  me  must  sleep. 

XXII 

Thereon  a  little  phial  shrilled, 

Here  empty  on  the  chair  I  lie : 
I  heard  one  say,  as  I  was  filled, 

With  half  of  this  a  man  would  die. 
The  man  there  drank  me  with  slow  breath, 

And  murmured.  Thus  ends  barren  strife  : 
O  sweeter,  thou  cold  wine  of  death. 

Than  ever  sweet  warm  wine  of  life. 


One  of  my  cousins  long  ago, 

A  little  thing,  the  mirror  said, 
Was  carried  to  a  couch  to  show, 

Whether  a  man  was  really  dead. 
Two  great  improvements  marked  the  case 

He  did  not  blur  her  with  his  breath. 
His  many-wrinkled,  twitching  face 

Was  smooth  old  ivory  :  verdict.  Death.  - 

XXIV 

It  lay,  the  lowest  thing  there,  lulled 
Sweet-sleep -like  in  corruption's  truce; 

The  form  whose  purpose  was  annulled. 
While  all  the  other  shapes  meant  use. 


IN    THE    ROOM 


It  lay,  the  he  become  now  it. 

Unconscious  of  the  deep  disgrace, 

Unanxious  how  its  parts  might  flit 

Through  what  new  forms  in  time  and  space. 

XXV 

It  lay  and  preached,  as  dumb  things  do, 

More  powerfully  than  tongues  can  prate ; 
Though  life  be  torture  through  and  through, 

Man  is  but  weak  to  plain  of  fate  : 
The  drear  path  crawls  on  drearier  still 

To  wounded  feet  and  hopeless  breast  ? 
Well,  he  can  lie  down  when  he  will. 

And  straight  all  ends  in  endless  rest. 

XXVI 

And  while  the  black  night  nothing  saw, 

And  till  the  cold  morn  came  at  last, 
That  old  bed  held  the  room  in  awe  * 

With  tales  of  its  experience  vast. 
It  thrilled  the  gloom  ;  it  told  such  tales 

Of  human  sorrows  and  delights. 
Of  fever  moans  and  infant  wails. 

Of  births  and  deaths  and  bridal  nights. 

1867-8. 


\\ 


lOI 


A  VOICE  FROM  THE  THE  NILE  x 

I    COME  from  mountains  under  other  stars 
Than  those  reflected  in  my  waters  here  ; 
Athwart  broad  realms,  beneath  large  skies,  I  flow. 
Between  the  Libyan  and  Arabian  hills, 
And  merge  at  last  into  the  great  Mid  Sea ; 
And  make  this  land  of  Egypt.     All  is  mine  : 
The  palm-trees  and  the  doves  among  the  palms, 
The  corn-fields  and  the  flowers  among  the  corn, 
The  patient  oxen  and  the  crocodiles, 
The  ibis  and  the  heron  and  the  hawk, 
The  lotus  and  the  thick  papyrus  reeds, 
The  slant-sailed  boats  that  flit  before  the  wind 
Or  up  my  rapids  ropes  hale  heavily ; 
Yea,  even  all  the  massive  temple-fronts 
With  all  their  columns  and  huge  effigies, 
The  pyramids  and  Memnon  and  the  Sphinx, 
This  Cairo  and  the  City  of  the  Greek 
As  Memphis  and  the  hundred-gated  Thebes, 
Sais  and  Denderah  of  Isis  queen  ; 
Have  grown  because  I  fed  them  with  full  life, 
And  flourish  only  while  I  feed  them  still. 
For  if  I  stint  my  fertilising  flood. 
Gaunt  famine  reaps  among  the  sons  of  men 
Who  have  not  corn  to  reap  for  all  they  sowed, 
And  blight  and  languishment  are  everywhere ; 
And  when  I  have  withdrawn  or  turned  aside 
To  other  realms  my  ever--flowing  streams. 


Reprinted  by  permission  from  the  Fortnightly  Review. 


A   VOICE    FROM    THE    NILE 

The  old  realms  withered  from  their  old  renown, 
The  sands  came  over  them,  the  desert-sands 
Incessantly  encroaching,  numberless 
Beyond  my  water-drops,  and  buried  them, 
And  all  is  silence,  solitude,  and  death. 
Exanimate  silence  while  the  waste  winds  howl 
Over  the  sad  immeasurable  waste. 

Dusk  memories  haunt  me  of  an  infinite  past, 
Ages  and  cycles  brood  above  my  springs, 
Though  I  remember  not  my  primal  birth. 
So  ancient  is  my  being  and  august, 
I  know  not  anything  more  venerable  ; 
Unless,  perchance,  the  vaulting  skies  that  hold 
The  sun  and  moon  and  stars  that  shine  on  me ; 
The  air  that  breathes  upon  me  with  delight ; 
And  Earth,  All-Mother,  all-beneficent. 
Who  held  her  mountains  forth  like  opulent  breasts 
To  cradle  me  and  feed  me  with  their  snows. 
And  hollowed  out  the  great  sea  to  receive 
My  overplus  of  flowing  energy  : 
Blessed  for  ever  be  our  Mother  Earth. 

Only,  the  mountains  that  must  feed  my  springs 
Year  after  year  and  every  year  with  snows 
As  they  have  fed  innumerable  years, 
These  mountains  they  are  evermore  the  same, 
Rooted  and  motionless ;  the  solemn  heavens 
Are  evermore  the  same  in  stable  rest ; 
The  sun  and  moon  and  stars  that  shine  on  me 


103 


A    VOICE    FROM   THE    NILE 

Are  evermore  the  same  although  they  move  : 

I  solely,  moving  ever  without  pause, 

Am  evermore  the  same  and  not  the  same ; 

Pouring  myself  away  into  the  sea, 

And  self-renewing  from  the  farthest  heights  ; 

Ever-fresh  waters  streaming  down  and  down, 

The  one  old  Nilus  constant  through  their  change. 

The  creatures  also  whom  I  breed  and  feed 
Perpetually  perish  and  dissolve, 
And  other  creatures  like  them  take  their  place, 
To  perish  in  their  turn  and  be  no  more  : 
My  profluent  waters  perish  not  from  life, 
Absorbed  into  the  ever-living  sea 
Whose  life  is  in  their  full  replenishment. 

Of  all  these  creatures  whom  I  breed  and  feed, 
One  only  with  his  works  is  strange  to  me, 
Is  strange  and  admirable  and  pitiable, 
As  homeless  where  all  others  are  at  home. 
My  crocodiles  are  happy  in  my  slime. 
And  bask  and  seize  their  prey,  each  for  itself, 
And  leave  their  eggs  to  hatch  in  the  hot  sun, 
And  die,  their  lives  fulfilled,  and  are  no  more, 
And  others  bask  and  prey  and  leave  their  eggs. 
My  doves  they  build  their  nests,  each  pair  its  own. 
And  feed  their  callow  young,  each  pair  its  own, 
None  serves  another,  each  one  serves  itself ; 
All  glean  alike  about  my  fields  of  grain. 
And  all  the  nests  they  build  them  are  alike, 


[04 


I 


A    VOICE    FROM    THE    NILE 

And  are  the  self-same  nests  they  built  of  old 

Before  the  rearing  of  the  pyramids, 

Before  great  Hekatompylos  was  reared ; 

Their  cooing  is  the  cooing  soft  and  sweet 

That  murmured  plaintively  at  evening-tide 

In  pillared  Karnak  as  its  pillars  rose ; 

And  they  are  happy  floating  through  my  palms. 

But  Man,  the  admirable,  the  pitiable, 
These  sad-eyed  peoples  of  the  sons  of  men, 
Are  as  the  children  of  an  alien  race 
Planted  among  my  children,  not  at  home, 
Changelings  aloof  from  all  my  family. 
The  one  is  servant  and  the  other  lord. 
And  many  myriads  serve  a  single  lord : 
So  was  it  when  the  pyramids  were  reared, 
And  sphinxes  and  huge  columns  and  wrought  stones 
Were  haled  long  lengthening  leagues  adown  my  banks 
By  hundreds  groaning  with  the  stress  of  toil. 
-And  groaning  under  the  taskmaster's  scourge, 
With  many  falling  foredone  by  the  way, 
Half-starved  on  lentils,  onions,  and  scant  bread  ; 
So  is  it  now  with  these  poor  fellaheen 
To  whom  my  annual  bounty  brings  fierce  toil 
With  scarce  enough  of  food  to  keep-in  life. 
They  build  mud  huts  and  spacious  palaces ; 
And  in  the  huts  the  moiling  millions  dwell, 
And  in  the  palaces  their  sumptuous  lords 
Pampered  with  all  the  choicest  things  I  yield: 
Most  admirable,  most  pitiable  Man. 


105 


A    VOICE    FROM    THE    NILE 

Also  their  peoples  ever  are  at  war, 
Slaying  and  slain,  burning  and  ravaging, 
And  one  yields  to  another  and  they  pass, 
While  I  flow  evermore  the  same  great  Nile, 
The  ever-young  and  ever-ancient  Nile  : 
The  swarthy  is  succeeded  by  the  dusk, 
The  dusky  by  the  pale,  the  pale  again 
By  sunburned  turbaned  tribes  long-linen-robed  : 
And  with  these  changes  all  things  change  and  pass, 
All  things  but  Me  and  this  old  Land  of  mine. 
Their  dwellings,  habitudes,  and  garbs,  and  tongues  : 
I  hear  strange  voices  ;  i  never  more  the  voice 
Austere  priests  chanted  to  the  boat  of  death 
Gliding  across  the  Acherusian  lake. 
Or  satraps  parleyed  in  the  Pharaoh's  halls  ; 
Never  the  voice  of  mad  Cambyses'  hosts, 
Never  the  voice  of  Alexander's  Greece, 
Never  the  voice  of  Caesar's  haughty  Rome  : 
And  with  the  peoples  and  the  languages. 
With  the  great  Empires  still  the  great  Creeds  change  ; 
They  shift,  they  change,  they  vanish  like  thin  dreams, 
As  unsubstantial  as  the  mists  that  rise 
After  my  overflow  from  out  my  fields, 
In  silver  fleeces,  golden  volumes,  rise. 
And  melt  away  before  the  mounting  sun  ; 
While  I  flow  onward  solely  permanent 
Amidst  their  swiftly-passing  pageantry. 

I  "  and  Nilusheareth  strange  voices.  "  —  Sir  Thomas  Browtu. 


1 06 


A    VOICE    FROM    THE    NILE 

Poor  men,  most  admirable,  most  pitiable, 
With  all  their  changes  all  their  great  Creeds  change : 
For  Man,  this  alien  in  my  family, 
Is  alien  most  in  this,  to  cherish  dreams 
And  brood  on  visions  of  eternity, 
And  build  religions  in  his  brooding  brain 
And  in  the  dark  depths  awe-full  of  his  soul. 
My  other  children  live  their  little  lives. 
Are  born  and  reach  their  prime  and  slowly  fail, 
And  all  their  little  lives  are  self-fulfilled  ; 
They  die  and  are  no  more,  content  with  age 
And  weary  with  infirmity.     But  Man 
Has  fear  and  hope  and  phantasy  and  awe, 
And  wistful  yearnings  and  unsated  loves. 
That  strain  beyond  the  limits  of  his  life, 
And  therefore  Gods  and  Demons,  Heaven  and  Hell 
This  Man,  the  admirable,  the  pitiable. 

Lo,  I  look  backward  some  few  thousand  years, 
And  see  men  hewing  temples  in  my  rocks 
With  seated  forms  gigantic  fronting  them, 
And  solemn  labyrinthine  catacombs 
With  tombs  all  pictured  with  fair  scenes  of  life 
And  scenes  and  symbols  of  mysterious  death  ; 
And  planting  avenues  of  sphinxes  forth, 
Sphinxes  couched  calm,  whose  passionless  regard 
Sets  timeless  riddles  to  bewildered  time, 
Forth  from  my  sacred  banks  to  other  fanes 
Islanded  in  the  boundless  sea  of  air. 
Upon  whose  walls  and  colonnades  are  carved 


[07 


A    VOICE    FROM    THE    NILE 

Tremendous  hieroglyphs  of  secret  things  ; 

I  see  embalming  of  the  bodies  dead 

And  judging  of  the  disembodied  souls  ; 

I  see  the  sacred  animals  alive, 

And  statues  of  the  various-headed  gods, 

Among  them  throned  a  woman  and  a  babe. 

The  goddess  crescent-homed,  the  babe  divine  ; 

Then  I  flow  forward  some  few  thousand  years, 

And  see  new  temples  shining  with  all  grace. 

Whose  sculptured  gods  are  beautiful  human  forms. 

Then  I  flow  forward  not  a  thousand  years, 

And  see  again  a  woman  and  a  babe. 

The  woman  haloed  and  the  babe  divine  ; 

And  everywhere  that  symbol  of  the  cross 

I  knew  aforetime  in  the  ancient  days, 

The  emblem  then  of  life,  but  now  of  death. 

Then  I  flow  forward  some  few  hundred  years, 

And  see  again  the  crescent,  now  supreme 

On  lofty  cupolas  and  minarets 

Whence  voices  sweet  and  solemn  call  to  prayer. 

So  the  men  change  along  my  changeless  stream, 

And  change  their  faiths  ;  but  I  yield  all  alike 

Sweet  water  for  their  drinking,  sweet  as  wine, 

And  pure  sweet  water  for  their  lustral  rites  : 

For  thirty  generations  of  my  corn 

Outlast  a  generation  of  my  men. 

And  thirty  generations  of  my  men 

Outlast  a  generation  of  their  gods  : 

O  admirable,  pitiable  Man, 

My  child  yet  alien  in  my  family. 


io8 


I 


A   VOICE    FROM    THE    NILE 

And  I  through  all  these  generations  flow 
Of  corn  and  men  and  gods,  all-bountiful, 
Perennial  through  their  transientness,  still  fed 
By  earth  with  waters  in  abundancy ; 
And  as  I  flowed  here  long  before  they  were, 
So  may  I  flow  when  they  no  longer  are. 
Most  like  the  serpent  of  eternity  : 
Blessed  for  ever  be  our  Mother  Earth. 

November  1881. 


109 


THE  POET  AND  HIS  MUSE 

I    SIGHED  unto  my  Muse,  '*  O  gentle  Muse, 
Would  you  but  come  and  kiss  my  aching  brow, 
And  thus  a  little  life  and  joy  infuse 

Into  my  brain  and  heart  so  weary  now  ; 
Into  my  heart  so  sad  with  emptiness 
Even  when  unafflicted  by  the  stress 

Of  all  our  kind's  poor  life  ; 
Into  my  brain  so  feeble  and  so  listless, 
Crushed  down  by  burthens  of  dark  thought  resistless 
Of  all  our  want  and  woe  and  un resulting  strife. 

"  Would  you  but  come  and  kiss  me  on  the  brow, 

Would  you  but  kiss  me  on  the  pallid  lips 
That  have  so  many  years  been  songless  now, 
And  on  the  eyes  involved  in  drear  eclipse  ; 
That  thus  the  barren  brain  long  overwrought 
Might  yield  again  some  blossoms  of  glad  thought, 

And  the  long-mute  lips  sing, 
And  the  long-arid  eyes  grow  moist  and  tender 
With  some  new  vision  of  the  ancient  splendour 
Of  beauty  and  delight  that  lives  in  everything. 

'*  Would  you  but  kiss  me  on  the  silent  lips 

And  teach  them  thus  to  sing  some  new  sweet 
song; 

Would  you  but  kiss  my  eyes  from  their  eclipse 
With  some  new  tale  of  old-world  right  and  wrong  : 


IIO 


THE    POET   AND    HIS    MUSE 

Some  song  of  love  and  joy  or  tender  grief 
Whose  sweetness  is  its  own  divine  relief, 

Whose  joy  is  golden  bliss  ; 
Some  solemn  and  impassioned  antique  story 
Where  love  against  dark  doom  burns  out  in  glory, 
Where  life  is  freely  staked  to  win  one  mutual  kiss. 

'*  Would  you  but  sing  to  me  some  new  dear  song 

Of  love  in  bliss  or  bale  alike  supreme ; 

Some  story  of  our  old-world  right  and  wrong 

With  noble  passion  burning  through  the  theme  : 
What  though  the  story  be  of  darkest  doom, 
If  loyal  spirits  shining  through  its  gloom 

Throb  to  us  from  afar? 
What  though  the  song  with  heavy  sorrows  languish, 
If  loving  hearts  pulse  to  us  through  its  anguish  ? 
Is  not   the  whole  black  night  enriched  by  one  pure 
star  ?  " 

And  lo !  She  came,  the  ever-gentle  Muse, 
Sad  as  my  heart,  and  languid  as  my  brain  ; 

Too  gentle  in  her  loving  to  refuse, 

Although  her  steps  were  weariness  and  pain ; 

Although  her  eyes  were  blank  and  lustreless, 

Although  her  form  was  clothed  with  heaviness 
And  drooped  beneath  the  weight; 

Although  her  lips  were  blanched  from  all  their 
blooming, 

Her  pure  face  pallid  as  from  long  entombing. 
Her  bright  regard  and  smile  sombre  and  desolate.  — 


THE    POET   AND    HIS    MUSE 

"  Sad  as  thy  heart  and  languid  as  thy  brain 

I  come  unto  thy  sighing  through  the  gloom, 
I  come  with  mortal  weariness  and  pain, 

I  come  as  one  compelled  to  leave  her  tomb  : 
Behold,  am  I  not  wrapt  as  in  the  cloud 
Of  death's  investiture  and  sombre  shroud  ? 

Am  I  not  wan  as  death ! 
Look  at  the  withered  leafage  of  my  garland. 
Is  it  not  nightshade  from  the  sad  dim  far  land 
Of  night  and  old  oblivion  and  no  mortal  breath  ? 

"  I  come  unto  thy  sighing  through  the  gloom, 

My  hair  dishevelled  dank  with  dews  of  night, 
Reluctantly  constrained  to  leave  my  tomb  ; 

With  eyes  that  have  for  ever  lost  their  light ; 
My  vesture  mouldering  with  deep  death's  disgrace, 
My  heart  as  chill  and  bloodless  as  my  face, 

My  forehead  like  a  stone  ; 
My  spirit  sightless  as  my  eyes  are  sightless. 
My  inmost  being  nerveless,  soulless,  lightless. 
My  joyous  singing  voice  a  harsh  sepulchral  moan. 

"  My  hair  dishevelled  dank  with  dews  of  night, 

From  that  far  region  of  dim  death  I  come. 
With  eyes  and  soul  and  spirit  void  of  light, 

With    lips   more   sad  in  speech   than   stark   and 
dumb : 
Lo,  you  have  ravaged  me  with  dolorous  thought 
Until  my  brain  was  wholly  overwrought, 
Barren  of  flowers  and  fruit ; 


THE    POET   AND    HIS    MUSE 

Until  my  heart  was  bloodless  for  all  passion, 
Until  my  trembling  lips  could  no  more  fashion 
Sweet  words  to  fit  sweet  airs  of  trembling  lyre  and  lute. 

"  From  the  sad  regions  of  dim  death  I  come ; 

We  tell  no  tales  there  for  our  tale  is  told, 
We  sing  no  songs  there  for  our  lips  are  dumb, 
Likewise    our    hearts    and    brains    are    graveyard 
mould  ; 
No  wreathes  of  laurel,  myrtle,  ivy  or  vine. 
About  our  pale  and  pulseless  brows  entwine. 

And  that  sad  frustrate  realm 
Nor  amaranths  nor  asphodels  can  nourish. 
But  aconite  and  black -red  poppies  flourish 
On  such  Lethean  dews  as  fair  life  overwhelm. 

"  We  tell  no  tales  more,  we  whose  tale  is  told ; 

As  your  brain  withered  and  your  heart  grew  chill 
My    heart    and    brain    were    turned    to    churchyard 
mould, 
Wherefore  my  singing  voice  sank  ever  still ; 
And  I,  all  heart  and  brain  and  voice,  am  dead ; 
It  is  my  Phantom  here  beside  your  bed 

That  speaketh  to  you  now  ; 
Though  you  exist  still,  a  mere  form  inurning 
The  ashes  of  dead  fires  of  thought  and  yearning, 
Dead  faith,  dead  love,  dead  hope,  in  hollow  breast 
and  brow." 

When  it  had  moaned  these  words  of  hopeless  doom. 
The  Phantom  of  the  Muse  once  young  and  fair. 


113 


THE    POET   AND    HIS    MUSE 

Pallid  and  dim  from  its  disastrous  tomb, 

Of  Her  so  sweet  and  young  and  debonnaire, 
So  rich  of  heart  and  brain  and  singing  voice, 
So  quick  to  shed  sweet  tears  and  to  rejoice 

And  smile  with  ravishing  grace  ; 
My  soul  was  stupefied  by  its  own  reaphig, 
Then  burst  into  a  flood  of  passionate  weeping, 
Tears  bitter  as  black  blood  streaming  adown  my  face. 

"  O  Muse,  so  young  and  sweet  and  glad  and  fair, 

O  Muse  of  hope  and  faith  and  joy  and  love, 
O  Muse  so  gracious  and  so  debonnaire, 

Darling  of  earth  beneath  and  heaven  above; 
If  Thou  art  gone  into  oblivious  death, 
Why  should  I  still  prolong  my  painful  breath  ? 

Why  still  exist,  the  urn 
Holding  of  once-great  fires  the  long  dead  ashes. 
No  sole  spark  left  of  all  their  glow  and  flashes. 
Fires  never  to  rekindle  more  and  shine  and  burn  ? 

"  O  Muse  of  hope  and  faith  and  joy  and  love, 
Soul  of  my  soul,  if  Thou  in  truth  art  dead, 
A  mournful  alien  in  our  world  above, 

A  Phantom  moaning  by  my  midnight  bed ; 
How  can  I  be  alive,  a  hollow  form 
With  ashes  of  dead  fires  once  bright  and  warm  ? 

What  thing  is  worth  my  strife  ? 
The  Past  a  great  regret,  the  Present  sterile. 
The  Future  hopeless,  with  the  further  peril 
Of  withering  down  and  down  to  utter  death -in-life. 


THE    POET   AND    HIS    MUSE 

"Soul  of  my  soul,  canst  Thou  indeed  be  dead? 

What  mean  for  me  if  I  accept  their  lore, 
Thy  words,  O  Phantom  moaning  by  my  bed, 

'  I  cannot  sing  again  for  evermore '  ? 
/  nevermore  can  think  or  feel  or  dream 
Or  hope  or  love  —  the  fatal  loss  supreme  I 

I  am  a  soulless  clod  ; 
No  germ  of  life  within  me  that  surpasses 
The  little  germs  of  weeds  and  flowers  and  grasses 
Wherewith  our  liberal  Mother  decks  the  graveyard  sod. 

"  I  am  half-torpid  yet  I  spurn  this  lore, 

I  am  long  silent  yet  cannot  avow 
My  singing  voice  is  lost  for  evermore ; 

For  lo,  this  beating  heart,  this  burning  brow, 
This  spirit  gasping  in  keen  spasms  of  dread 
And  fierce  revulsion  that  it  is  not  dead, 

This  agony  of  the  sting  : 
What    soulless    clod    could    have    these   tears   and 

sobbings, 
These    terrors    that    are    hopes,    these    passionate 
throbbings  ? 
Dear  Muse,  revive !  we  yet  may  dream  and  love  and 
sing  1 " 

February  1882. 


"5 


MATER   TENEBRARUM 


IN  the  endless  nights,  from  my  bed,  where  sleepless 
in  anguish  I  lie, 
I  startle   the   stillness   and   gloom  with   a   bitter   and 

strong  cry : 
O  Love !  O  Beloved  long  lost !  come  down  from  thy 

Heaven  above, 
For  my  heart  is  wasting  and  dying  in  uttermost  famine 

for  love ! 
Come  down  for  a  moment !  oh,  come  !  Come  serious 

and  mild 
And  pale,  as  thou  wert  on  this  earth,  thou  adorable 

Child  1 
Or  come  as  thou  art,  with  thy  sanctitude,  triumph  and 

bliss, 
For  a  garment  of  glory  about  thee ;  and  give  me  one 

kiss, 
One  tender  and  pitying  look  of  thy  tenderest  eyes. 
One  word  of  solemn  assurance  and  truth  that  the  soul 

with  its  love  never  dies  ! 


In  the  endless  nights,  from  my  bed,  where  sleepless  in 

frenzy  I  lie, 
I  cleave  through  the  crushing  gloom  with  a  bitter  and 

deadly  cry  : 


ii6 


MATER   TENEBRARUM 

Oh  !  where  have  they  taken  my  Love  from  our  Eden 

of  bliss  on  this  earth, 
Which  now  is  a  frozen  w^aste  of  sepulchral  and  horrible 

dearth  ? 
Have  they  killed  her  indeed  ?  is  her  soul  as  her  body, 

which  long 
Has  mouldered  away  in  the  dust  where  the  foul  worms 

throng  ? 
O'er  what  abhorrent  Lethes,  to  what  remotest  star. 
Is  she  rapt  away  from  my  pursuit  through  cycles  and 

systems  far  ? 
She  is  dead,  she  is  utterly  dead ;  for  her  life  would 

hear  and  speed 
To  the  wild  imploring  cry  of  my  heart  that  cries  in  its 

dreadful  need. 


Ill 


In  the  endless  nights,  on  my  bed,  where  sleeplessly 

brooding  I  lie, 
I  burden  the  heavy  gloom  with  a  bitter  and  weary  sigh  : 
No  hope  in  this  worn-out  world,  no  hope  beyond  the 

tomb  ; 
No  living  and  loving  God,  but  blind  and  stony  Doom. 
Anguish  and  grief  and  sin,  terror,  disease  and  despair : 
Why  throw  not  off  this  life,  this  garment  of  torture  I 

wear, 
And  go  down  to  sleep  in  the  grave  in  everlasting  rest  ? 
What  keeps  me  yet  in  this  life,  what  spark  in  my  frozen 

breast  ? 


MATER   TENEBRARUM 

A  fire  of  dread,  a  light  of  hope,  kindled,  O  Love,  by 

thee  ; 
For  thy  pure  and  gentle  and  beautiful  soul,  it  must 

immortal  be. 

1859. 


L'ANCIEN  REGIME; 

OR, 

THE  GOOD  OLD  RULE 

WHO  has  a  thing  to  bring 
For  a  gift  to  our  lord  the  king, 
Our  king  all  kings  above  ? 
A  young  girl  brought  him  love  ; 
And  he  dovi^ered  her  with  shame. 
With  a  sort  of  infamous  fame, 
And  then  with  lonely  years 
Of  penance  and  bitter  tears  : 
Love  is  scarcely  the  thing 
To  bring  as  a  gift  for  our  king. 

Who  has  a  thing  to  bring 

For  a  gift  to  our  lord  the  king  ? 

A  statesman  brought  him  planned 

Justice  for  all  the  land  ; 

And  he  in  recompense  got 

Fierce  struggle  with  brigue  and  plot, 

Then  a  fall  from  lofty  place 

Into  exile  and  disgrace  : 

Justice  is  never  the  thing 

To  bring  as  a  gift  for  our  king. 

Who  has  a  thing  to  bring 

For  a  gift  to  our  lord  the  king  ? 


119 


L'aNCIEN    RilGIME 

A  writer  brought  him  truth  ; 

And  first  he  imprisoned  the  youth  ; 

And  then  he  bestowed  a  free  pyre, 

That  the  works  might  have  plenty  of  fire, 

And  also  to  cure  the  pain 

Of  the  headache  called  thought  in  the  brain : 

Truth  is  a  very  bad  thing 

To  bring  as  a  gift  for  our  king. 

Who  has  a  thing  to  bring 

For  a  gift  to  our  lord  the  king  ? 

The  people  brought  their  sure 

Loyalty  fervid  and  pure; 

And  he  gave  them  bountiful  spoil 

Of  taxes  and  hunger  and  toil, 

Ignorance,  brutish  plight, 

And  wholesale  slaughter  in  fight : 

Loyalty's  quite  the  worst  thing 

To  bring  as  a  gift  for  our  king. 

Who  has  a  thing  to  bring 
For  a  gift  to  our  lord  the  king  ? 
A  courtier  brought  to  his  feet 
Servility  graceful  and  sweet, 
With  an  ever  ready  smile 
And  an  ever  supple  guile  ; 
And  he  got  in  reward  the  place 
Of  the  statesman  in  disgrace  : 
Servility's  always  a  thing 
To  bring  as  a  gift  for  our  king. 


L'ANCIEN    REGIME 

Who  has  a  thing  to  bring 

For  a  gift  to  our  lord  the  king  ? 

A  soldier  brought  him  war, 

La  gloh-e,  la  victoire. 

Ravage  and  carnage  and  groans, 

For  the  pious  Te  Deum  tones  ; 

And  he  got  in  return  for  himself 

Rank  and  honours  and  pelf  : 

War  is  a  very  fine  thing 

To  bring  as  a  gift  for  our  king. 

Who  has  a  thing  to  bring 

For  a  gift  to  our  lord  the  king  ? 

A  harlot  brought  him  her  flesh, 

Her  lusts,  and  the  manifold  mesh 

Of  her  wiles  intervolved  with  caprice 

And  he  gave  her  his  realm  to  fleece, 

To  corrupt,  to  ruin,  and  gave 

Himself  for  her  toy  and  her  slave : 

Harlotry's  just  the  thing 

To  bring  as  a  gift  for  our  king. 

Who  has  a  thing  to  bring 
For  a  gift  to  our  lord  the  king  ? 
Our  king  w^ho  fears  to  die  ? 
A  priest  brought  him  a  lie, 
The  blackness  of  hell  uprolled 
In  heaven's  shining  gold  ; 
And  he  got  as  guerdon  for  that 
A  see  and  a  cardinal's  hat : 

121 


l'ancien  regime 


A  lie  is  an  excellent  thing 

To  bring  as  a  gift  for  our  king. 

Has  any  one  yet  a  thing 
For  a  gift  to  our  lord  the  king  ? 
The  country  gave  him  a  tomb, 
A  magnificent  sleeping -room  : 
And  for  this  it  obtained  some  rest, 
Clear  riddance  of  many  a  pest, 
And  a  hope  which  it  much  enjoyed 
That  the  throne  would  continue  void 
A  tomb  is  the  very  best  thing 
For  a  gift  to  our  lord  the  king. 

1867. 


THE  SLEEPER  i 

THE  fire  is  in  a  steadfast  glow, 
The  curtains  drawn  against  the  night 
Upon  the  red  couch  soft  and  low 

Between  the  fire  and  lamp  alight 
She  rests  half-sitting,  half -reclining, 
Encompassed  by  the  cosy  shining, 

Her  ruby  dress  with  lace  trimmed  white. 

Her  left  hand  shades  her  drooping  eyes 
Against  the  fervour  of  the  fire, 

The  right  upon  her  cincture  lies 
In  languid  grace  beyond  desire, 

A  lily  fallen  among  roses  ; 

So  placidly  her  form  reposes, 
It  scarcely  seemeth  to  respire. 

She  is  not  surely  all  awake. 

As  yet  she  is  not  all  asleep ; 
The  eyes  with  lids  half -open  take 

A  startled  deprecating  peep 
Of  quivering  drowsiness,  then  slowly 
The  lids  sink  back,  before  she  wholly 

Resigns  herself  to  slumber  deep. 

The  side -neck  gleams  so  pure  beneath 
The  underfringe  of  gossamer, 

I  Reprinted  by  permission  from  the  Cornhill  Magazine. 


THE    SLEEPER 

The  tendrils  of  whose  faery  wreath 

The  softest  sigh  suppressed  would  stir. 
The  little  pink -shell  ear-rim  flushes 
With  her  young  blood's  translucent  blushes, 
Nestling  in  tresses  warm  as  fur. 

The  contour  of  her  cheek  and  chin 

Is  curved  in  one  delicious  line, 
Pure  as  a  vase  of  porcelain  thin 

Through  which  a  tender  light  may  shine  ; 
Her  brow  and  blue-veined  temple  gleaming 
Beneath  the  dusk  of  hair  back -streaming 

Are  as  a  virgin's  marble  shrine. 

The  ear  is  burning  crimson  fire, 

The  flush  is  brightening  on  the  face. 

The  lips  are  parting  to  suspire, 

The  hair  grows  restless  in  its  place 

As  if  itself  new  tangles  wreathing  ; 

The  bosom  with  her  deeper  breathing 
Swells  and  subsides  with  ravishing  grace. 

The  hand  slides  softly  to  caress, 

Unconscious,  that  fine -pencilled  curve 

"  Her  lip's  contour  and  downiness, " 
Unbending  with  a  sweet  reserve  ; 

A  tender  darkness  that  abashes 

Steals  out  beneath  the  long  dark  lashes. 

Whose  sightless  eyes  make  eyesight  swerve. 


124 


THE   SLEEPER 

The  hand  on  chin  and  throat  downslips, 
Then  softly,  softly  on  her  breast ; 

A  dream  comes  fluttering  o'er  the  lips, 
And  stirs  the  eyelids  in  their  rest. 

And  makes  their  undershadows  quiver, 

And  like  a  ripple  on  a  river 

Glides  through  her  breathing  manifest. 

I  feel  an  awe  to  read  this  dream 

So  clearly  written  in  her  smile ; 
A  pleasant  not  a  passionate  theme, 

A  little  love,  a  little  guile  ; 
I  fear  lest  she  should  speak  revealing 
The  secret  of  some  maiden  feeling 

I  have  no  right  to  hear  the  while. 

The  dream  has  passed  without  a  word 
Of  all  that  hovered  finely  traced  ; 

The  hand  has  slipt  down,  gently  stirred 
To  join  the  other  at  her  waist ; 

Her  breath  from  that  light  agitation 

Has  settled  to  its  slow  pulsation  ; 
She  is  by  deep  sleep  re-embraced. 

Deep  sleep,  so  holy  in  its  calm, 

So  helpless,  yet  so  awful  too  ; 
Whose  silence  sheds  as  sweet  a  balm 

As  ever  sweetest  voice  could  do  ; 
Whose  tranced  eyes,  unseen,  unseeing 
Shadowed  by  pure  love,  thrill  our  being 

With  tender  yearnings  through  and  through. 


125 


THE    SLEEPER 

Sweet  sleep ;  no  hope,  no  fear,  no  strife  ; 

The  solemn  sanctity  of  death. 
With  all  the  loveliest  bloom  of  life ; 

Eternal  peace  in  mortal  breath  : 
Pure  sleep  from  which  she  will  awaken 
Refreshed  as  one  who  hath  partaken 

New  strength,  new  hope,  new  love,  new  faith 

January  1882. 


26 


ON  A  BROKEN  PIPE 

NEGLECTED  now  it  Hes  a  cold  clay  form, 
So  late  with  living  inspirations  warm : 
Type  of  all  other  creatures  formed  of  clay  — 
What  more  than  it  for  Epitaph  have  they  ? 


127 


DAY 

WAKING  one  morning 
In  a  pleasant  land, 
By  a  river  flowing 
Over  golden  sand  :  — 

Whence  flow  ye,  waters, 
O'er  your  golden  sand  ? 
We  come  flowing 
From  the  Silent  Land. 

Whither  flow  ye,  waters. 
O'er  your  golden  sand  ? 
We  go  flowing 
To  the  Silent  Land. 

And  what  is  this  fair  realm  ? 
A  grain  of  golden  sand 
In  the  great  darkness 
Of  the  Silent  Land. 

1866. 


H 


NIGHT 

E  cried  out  through  the  night 
"  Where  is  the  light  ? 
Shall  nevermore 
Open  Heaven's  door  ? 
Oh,  I  am  left 
Lonely,  bereft  I " 


He  cried  out  through  the  night : 
It  spread  vaguely  white, 
With  its  ghost  of  a  moon 
Above  the  dark  swoon 
Of  the  earth  lying  chill, 
Breathless,  grave  still. 

He  cried  out  through  the  night : 
His  voice  in  its  might 
Rang  forth  far  and  far, 
And  then  like  a  star 
Dwindled  from  sense 
In  the  Immense. 

He  cried  out  through  the  night : 
No  answering  light, 
No  syllabled  sound ; 
Beneath  and  around 
A  long  shuddering  thrill, 
Then  all  again  still. 


[864. 


WILLIAM  BLAKE 

HE  came  to  the  desert  of  London  town 
Grey  miles  long ; 
He  wandered  up  and  he  wandered  down, 
Singing  a  quiet  song. 

He  came  to  the  desert  of  London  town, 

Mirk  miles  broad ; 
He  wandered  up  and  he  wandered  down, 

Ever  alone  with  God. 

There  were  thousands  and  thousands  of  human  kind 

In  this  desert  of  brick  and  stone  : 
But  some  were  deaf  and  some  were  blind, 

And  he  was  there  alone. 

At  length  the  good  hour  came;  he  died 

As  he  had  lived,  alone: 
He  was  not  missed  from  the  desert  wide, 

Perhaps  he  was  found  at  the  Throne. 

1866. 


130 


E.  B.  B. 

THE  white-rose  garland  at  her  feet, 
The  crown  of  laurel  at  her  head, 
Her  noble  life  on  earth  complete, 

Lay  her  in  the  last  low  bed 
For  the  slumber  calm  and  deep : 
"  He  giveth  His  beloved  sleep." 

Soldiers  find  their  fittest  grave 
In  the  field  whereon  they  died : 

So  her  spirit  pure  and  brave 
Leaves  the  clay  it  glorified 

To  the  land  for  which  she  fought 

With  such  grand  impassioned  thought. 

Keats  and  Shelley  sleep  at  Rome, 
She  in  well-loved  Tuscan  earth  : 

Finding  all  their  death's  long  home 
Far  from  their  old  home  of  birth, 

Italy  you  hold  in  trust 

Very  sacred  English  dust. 

Therefore  this  one  prayer  I  breathe, — 
That  you  yet  may  worthy  prove 

Of  the  heirlooms  they  bequeath 

Who  have  loved  you  with  such  love : 

Fairest  land  while  land  of  slaves 

Yields  their  free  souls  no  fit  graves. 

1861. 


31 


THE   FIRE   THAT   FILLED    MY 
HEART    OF    OLD 


THE  fire  that  filled  my  heart  of  old 
Gave  lustre  while  it  burned ; 
Now  only  ashes  grey  and  cold 

Are  in  its  silence  urned. 
Ah !  better  was  the  furious  flame, 
The  splendour  with  the  smart : 
I  never  cared  for  the  singer's  fame, 
But,  oh  I  for  the  singer's  heart 

Once  more  — 
The  burning  fulgent  heart  1 

II 

No  love,  no  hate,  no  hope,  no  fear. 

No  anguish  and  no  mirth  ; 
Thus  life  extends  from  year  to  year, 

A  flat  of  sullen  dearth. 
Ah !  life's  blood  creepeth  cold  and  tame, 

Life's  thought  plays  no  new  part : 
I  never  cared  for  the  singer's  fame, 

But,  oh  I  for  the  singer's  heart 
Once  more  — 

The  bleeding  passionate  heart  I 


1864. 


132 


SONG 

4  4  nPHE  Nightingale  was  not  yet  heard, 
1       For  the  Rose  was  not  yet  blown. 
His  heart  was  quiet  as  a  bird 

Asleep  in  the  night  alone, 
And  never  were  its  pulses  stirred 

To  breathe  or  joy  or  moan  : 
The  Nightingale  was  not  yet  heard 

For  the  Rose  was  not  yet  blown. 

Then  She  bloomed  forth  before  his  sight 

In  passion  and  in  power, 
And  filled  the  very  day  with  light, 

So  glorious  was  her  dower; 
And  made  the  whole  vast  moonlit  night 

As  fragrant  as  a  bower  : 
The  young,  the  beautiful,  the  bright, 

The  splendid  peerless  Flower. 

Whereon  his  heart  was  like  a  bird 

When  Summer  mounts  his  throne, 
And  all  its  pulses  thrilled  and  stirred 

To  songs  of  joy  and  moan, 
To  every  most  impassioned  word 

And  most  impassioned  tone  ; 
The  Nightingale  at  length  was  heard 

For  the  Rose  at  length  was  blown. 

February  1877. 


I  "  Traveller  in  Persia  "  ( Mr.  Binning) ;  cited  by 
Mr.  FitzGerald  in  the  notes  to  his  translation  of 
Omar  Khayydm. 


133 


A  REQUIEM 

THOU  hast  lived  in  pain  and  woe, 
Thou  hast  lived  in  grief  and  fear ; 
Now  thine  heart  can  dread  no  blow, 
Now  thine  eyes  can  shed  no  tear : 

Storms  round  us  shall  beat  and  rave ; 
Thou  art  sheltered  in  the  grave. 

Thou  for  long,  long  years  hast  borne, 
Bleeding  through  Life's  wilderness, 
Heavy  loss  and  wounding  scorn  ; 
Now  thine  heart  is  burdenless : 

Vainly  rest  for  ours  we  crave ; 

Thine  is  quiet  in  the  grave. 

We  must  toil  with  pain  and  care, 
We  must  front  tremendous  Fate, 
We  must  fight  with  dark  Despair: 
Thou  dost  dwell  in  solemn  state. 

Couched  triumphant,  calm  and  brave, 

In  the  ever-holy  grave. 

1858. 


Of  u: 


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